These days between Christmas and New Year often feel like a secret to be stepped into. Moments of quiet to be inhaled and exhaled, to be harnessed or released – sand through fingers, light over water…

We’re on the brink of an ending, and a fresh start, and for many of us this offers a wealth of possibilities.

What ideas does this time unfurl within you?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud(dot)com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

One of the loveliest things about this time of year is the excuse to reconnect with friends and family. Distant relatives suddenly bob to the surface of your mind with the help of a card or email, and some heartfelt Christmas greetings.

Imagine two people who haven’t been in touch for months or years, and the Christmas card that changes that.

Use this as the foundation of a story – who is the person sending the card? What has motivated them to reach out now? Who is the recipient? What has prevented them speaking for so long? Does the card have the desired result?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I’m always intrigued by the parts of things that we rarely see – the underside of bridges, backstage catacombs, caves…

The underside of boats are particularly beautiful when hoisted into the air for maintenance. Someone told me recently that this is a seven-yearly process, which is curiously poetic. Every seven years these hulls are hauled from water to be licked by breezes.

It seems to me that they carry with them the memories of navigations, stars and moons. The barnacles, rust and mottled paint are riddled through with sea shanties and myths. Some parts seem less than vessels than curious whales and other marine creatures….

What do they stir in you?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

According to Kim Ann Zimmermann at Live Science, “Pareidolia is a type of apophenia, which is a more generalized term for seeing patterns in random data. Some common examples are seeing a likeness of Jesus in the clouds or an image of a man on the surface of the moon.“

It’s also the reason why a particular brand of breakfast food is known as ‘Sad Ghost Cereal’ in my household.

Imagine becoming convinced this was the truth – could you become haunted by your own snack? You can shift this phenomena to any household item. Just take a glance around and see what’s grinning or grimacing at you right now!

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to JudyDarley(at)icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

This is the second piano to make it onto my Writing Prompts column. What it is about their keys and chords that ripples so many stories into existence?

The last one was prompted by my dad. This one came about thanks to my mum. After an evening out she headed off to the bus station, then sent me a message to tell me the following:

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I was looking at some photos I took in Laugharne this summer and almost deleted this one because of a strange mark I mistook for a smudge on the lens.

But then I zoomed in a little and discovered a slightly blurry image of a bird in flight, or perhaps a pterosaur.

It made me consider how easily this could create a plot twist in a story, as your character notices something unexpected or revealing in a photo they thought they knew…

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

A couple of years a friend and I wrote up a mass of cheery statements and attached them to my nephew’s discarded baby socks, then scattered them through the neighbourhood. It became part of the Totterdown’s Front Room Arts Trail 2015.

Our only goal was to spread a few smiles.

Why not attempt something similar with your writing?  Word or poetry bomb a public place to make someone stop in their tracks and think for a moment.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Imagine this goat is the wisest creature you will ever meet. Imagine it has the answers to any question you could ever want or hope to ask.

How would you communicate? How might people treat this wise old goat? Might they honour it, or fear it? How did it become so very wise in the first place?

Only you have the answer to that.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I was walking through Arnos Vale’s Victorian cemetery recently, when a plea for help caught my eye. Apparently, rather than buying a plot, the Victorians’ preferred to rent theirs – I suppose they surmised that they would only need it for a generation or two at most.

According to the sign: “The Victorians often lease family grave ‘in perpetuity’, or for 125 years, with little thought about who would pay for their care after that. Thousands of family graves have been effectively ‘abandoned’ over the past 50 years, so funds for upkeep have ceased.”

What now?!

I immediately pictured countless wraiths being evicted for failing to pay their rent. What form might they take? Where could they go in search of refuge? Who might let them in?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com. If you’d like to donate to Arnos Vale Cemetery, visit their website.

It’s always intriguing to see a boat out at sea. Where are they going and where have they been? Is this about pleasure, arduous work or desperation? Is this the end or just the beginning of their voyage? Weave a tale from this simple image.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.