january writing promps

january writing promps

Exploring Creativity: A Collection of January Writing Prompts

1. Introduction to Writing Prompts

When I prompt myself, I set a time limit and write. It’s important I don’t let fear hold me back. I find myself making breakthroughs when my brain gets kicked into gear and has to write instead of edit. So however uninspired, strange, or ill-conceived my original idea seemed, I end up feeling good about the progress I make. I remind myself to face the blank page and start writing. If you’re looking to get started or rev up your writing, check out one of these prompts. Just write and have fun! In the process of writing, you might rediscover the love for stringing words together, find a new idea to take you past your own block, build important editing skills, stumble across your author’s voice, or create something beautiful!

Writing prompts have been a great tool to help me defeat writer’s block, develop ideas, write effectively, make artistic discoveries, and keep my finger on the pulse of my style. I learned early in my attempt to write daily that a prompt is especially helpful when I’m feeling uninspired, at a loss for ideas, or looking to try something new. While not all writing prompts are created equal, the prompts I really get jazzed about are the ones that tap into my creativity. I’ve gathered eighteen of these creative prompts to share with you here during January. Each week, you’ll find a collection of the prompts that inspire me. We’ll write together and share our work. Writers, let’s go on a creative journey and explore our creativity with these prompts.

2. Benefits of Using Writing Prompts

I worry that as writing teachers, we may have made them seem trivial by so often using them to help beginning-write students learn basic writing skills. We use prompts to provide beginning writers with accessible topics and guidance that will help them become better writers. We use prompts to stimulate popular writing forms that new writers will need for introductory courses in various American educational programs throughout their lives, by beginning middle, high school, or adult students with appropriate yet limited writing strategies. One of the best ways to help experienced writers renew their creativity and to explore new strategies for writing instruction is using something as common as the writing prompt. A prompt can be a simple word, a phrase, a sentence, or an entire paragraph that sets the stage for the writer’s composition.

Writers, designers, diarists, scientists, businesspeople, storytellers, and others often need to be creative to innovate, to explore, to remember, and to persuade. They may need to be creative every day, about new topics. Or immerse themselves in a single theme to uncover many available options for their sustained effort to thrive in a low-paying industry. Every need rarely ceases to be creative, every task they serve rarely demands the grandest efforts that professionals bring to their work. Writing prompts are a powerful tool for stimulating and facilitating creativity.

3. January Writing Prompts for Fiction

5) Create a detective with a personality trait that is indicative of his or her sleuthing skills, perhaps a highly perceptive person who is always listening to people’s conversations, or someone who uses the I-Ching to solve their cases.

4) What if a person discovers that one of their “talents” is something generally feared or reviled – the knowledge that they themselves are a member of that same social group is a total surprise. Would they hide their talent? Where would the conflict come from? What could they achieve through their uniqueness?

3) In this world, people’s personalities appear in physical form on their skin, hair or clothing, etc. For example, an outgoing or intellectual school teacher might have a mass of “knowledge” in the shape of books surrounding him or her. Create a character and/or a set of circumstances and make a story out of one of these talents (or the lack of it) making a major difference in a character’s life – a very intelligent person might feel “weighed down” by their mass of “books”.

2) Write a short story or personal account about someone who is using his or her senses for the very first time, as if he or she has only just been born or has been deaf, blind or mute from birth. How did this person feel when he experienced sound, sight or taste for the first time? What were the reactions of those around him?

1) What are some distinctive ways to utilize writing for children or adults with writing or language disorders? (Assume they have very limited expressive language abilities.)

4. January Writing Prompts for Non-Fiction

Looking for a fresh start? January is named after Janus, the Roman god of doors and gateways. This deity is often depicted looking in two directions at once, a symbol of beginnings and transitions between the past and future. In a sense, each day offers a gateway or doorway to new experiences, thoughts, and connections. Consider writing a short essay based on one of the daily gateways, big or small, offered in this month-long list of writing prompts. Whether sharing a funny story from your day, life lessons learned, seriously quirky characters, or a profound experience, each narrative, list, reflection, and thought exercise encourages positive self-expression and reflection.

With a renewed sense of purpose and a few extra days off, January provides an inspiring backdrop for projects, hobbies, and journal entries that showcase our creative potential. From fresh starts to positive change, there’s plenty to explore in both one’s writing and one’s world in the month of January. Whether penned as a New Year’s manifesto, included in a gratitude journal, or shared among writers yearning for a creative jump start, these exploratory January writing prompts invite a new year of writing from the heart.

5. Conclusion and Tips for Successful Writing

When you are ready to sit down and write, you have to take the time to come up with an intelligent subject or topic. Hopefully, this collection of writing prompts will help you out a little. You do not have to be a professional writer to brainstorm a great idea and to have fun writing about it. Don’t worry about how your thoughts are arranged or whether your grammar is correct. Give your important thoughts a chance to come out of hiding. After you finish writing, then you can worry about the spelling and grammar. So, sit back, relax, and let your thoughts come out onto the paper!

Thank you for taking the time to read these fifty-one January writing prompts! I hope that you have found so many ideas to write about that you will be able to stay busy all month long. If not, then I hope that you are still planning a few writing sessions with us. The passion that we put into our writing can become quite an emotional release for us. It also gives us a chance to share our feelings or to get our point across. Plus, it is much cheaper than going to a psychiatrist.