06-04-04 @ 3:17 am EDT

Looking for writing or journaling prompts, I came across this site-- http://www.theblob.org/raina/prompts/ --which takes an interesting approach in offering just these odd little phrases or objects or situations for inspiration. They're intended mainly for fantasy writers (*droolage*). There are seventy of them there. I've been collecting a lot of prompts lately but when it comes to just sitting down and WRITING something from them...for some reason I keep freezing up. o_o I blame this stupid dream transcription thingie. I never start any big undertakings (including writing journal entries, on- or offline) for fear of not having enough time. Even now I'm writing in here later than I should be. *grr*

But anyway, I sat down last night and wondered if *I* could think up any interesting prompts. Well, that question still hasn't been answered. But I did try to come up with a few. I thought I would try to do at least a hundred. So far I have just over fifty. So I'll share the first fifty with you people reading Skew. Don't you feel privileged?

Unlike Dawn, the creator of the site above, my prompts are all objects of a sort, rather than situations and things like that, since I'm better at visualizing concrete things, apparently.

Here you go. Sorry if they get repetitive or boring, but remember, I usually write, not write prompts.

1. a silver car
2. a box full of keys, of all shapes and sizes
3. a hidden courtyard
4. a fuzzy purple blanket
5. a cracked piece of amber
6. chipped stone angels
7. a fan made of leaves
8. tiny windows
9. a flooded cave
10. a cheetah with a diamond collar
11. a book missing all its pages
12. a hair from a lion's mane
13. blue buttons
14. a dusty oil lamp
15. a pearl-handled brush
16. fireflies skimming the water
17. a telephone that rings at the same hour every night
18. a coat with many pockets
19. a silver hair tie
20. dead leaves scattered across the floor
21. violet-tinted spectacles
22. a teddy bear with mismatched eyes
23. a pincushion full of needles
24. little yellow apples
25. a jewel-studded tooth
26. a broken birdcage
27. an empty picture frame
28. a pen with green ink
29. a sandbox with a hole in it
30. birds that don't sing
31. half-empty bottles on a dusty shelf
32. three dolls which are identical, but for one thing
33. papers burning in a fireplace
34. clouds shaped like horses
35. a pink tint at evening
36. a lightning-scarred tree
37. pebbles in a rain puddle
38. a broken seesaw
39. grains of sugar lining a spoon
40. a dollhouse without furniture
41. a hole under a fence
42. an echoing hallway full of chairs
43. a bedframe decorated with ribbons
44. a humid, hazy night, August 27th
45. a bicycle basket full of wilted flowers
46. a ruby ring with a broken setting
47. a light flickering in a tent
48. a ladder missing a step
49. indigo walls
50. cream-colored thread

That's it for now. I do have a few more but I like nice even numbers so until I come up with fifty more, that's all there is.

I don't know if they're any good but if you think you could use any for a story or something go right ahead, because that's what they're for.

While I'm in here I might as well say that for the first time a few days ago I saw an indigo bunting outside the window. http://www.ronausting.com/indigo.htm , http://www.naturesound.com/birds/pages/bunting.html , http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/audio_pages/indigo_bunting.html , http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/content/animals/species/2232.html And I saw him again yesterday morning. I've been hearing him for weeks. Oddly enough it was when he was making a dull little "chip, chip" noise that I first went to find out what exactly he was, and I spotted this gorgeous bird on the porch. Then he looked at me, belted out this WONDERFUL sound, and flew away. His body is cerulean and his head is indigo and his wingtips are black, and he has a LOUD BEAUTIFUL voice. I didn't even know we had indigo buntings around here. I thought I'd seen a flash of blue on the porch weeks ago but then I thought it was just me because bluebirds are very, very rare around here (I've seen one only once in my lifetime and that was in Petoskey, in the wild) and it was too small to be a bluejay. Now I know. I recognized what he was on sight. My childhood days of poring over my bird book finally pay off. :D

Tar...