Valentine

I know Valentine's Day was two months ago, but that doesn't render it exempt from the writing warm-ups for my A to Z Blogging Challenge! 

You can take practically anything and expand it into a decent story idea... some completely unrelated to the original concept. Lets see where this beautiful rose takes us...

V for Valentine.

1. Choose from one of the following two exercises, spending a few minutes freewriting:

• Your partner has carelessly left a receipt loitering in the house for TWO Valentine's cards...
• Describe an office/workplace setting on Valentine's Day: does someone send flowers to themselves? Does someone mope around the place, devastated from a recent break up? Is there a bitter singleton spouting venom on all non-single colleagues? Or what about a secret admirer...?

2. Sketch a mind-map using the key word as the nucleus, then branch out in whatever direction you please. You might find yourself going in completely unrelated paths (which I personally prefer). Do a five-minute freewrite incorporating as many (or few) branch words as you like. Here is my mind map (created using the SimpleMind app on my phone).

3. Choose one of the following sentence starts and freewrite for a few minutes, letting the words tumble out without a second thought:

• I squealed and told him he shouldn't have. He frowned at me, saying 'But I didn't.'...
• It was simply the worst day of the year, for two reasons...
• Tonight's going to be the night...

I find it best not to read my freewrites for at least a few days. Why not stuff them in a drawer and surprise yourself? It's blatant evidence that our minds work in mysterious ways. Plus, I defy you not to find an array of story seeds amongst your work.

Do you have any writing warm-ups you'd like to share?

Take care,

Catherine x

Note: All photo prompts in my A to Z Challenge 2013 are my own. Feel free to use/copy/share to your hearts content. Help yourself. :)  

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Valentine