What does it mean when the sea is so still it mirrors each cloud? With no waves to break, and no wind to gust is the sea in fact still the sea?

What if the sea falls silent?

Can you use this prompt to spur on an exploration of identity? What aspect of yourself is intrinsic to who you are? Would other people agree? Could you imagine that detail evaporating and being surprised by the sense of yourself that remains, or that supersedes what you thought you knew about yourself?

Alternatively, why not write an ecological tale about what happens when the waves stop waving and the sea grows still? How long before we feel that impact from the shore?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Visiting a rose garden, I saw a squirrel helping itself to a gorgeous bloom and carrying it off to enjoy a many-petalled fragrant feast. It made me think of Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts having white roses painted red. How might she punish this greedy squirrel ruining her display.

Imagine if you had allergies that meant the only thing you could eat was roses. How would you keep your diet interesting? What would you do in Winter when the rose garden is only thorns?

Or what if rose petals., or some other unlikely edible plant, had the power to transform you, like the potions and cakes in Alice in Wonderland?

Let your imagination run free with this writing prompt!

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

On a coastal walk following a storm, I saw this skull in the grass a few hundred metres from the shore. I think it might be a sheep’s skull and wonder if a particularly vigorous wave thrust it here. Or did a passing fox take a fancy to it, carry it so far and then give up this trophy?

When I was a child, my artist mum had a passion for such finds, and once stunk out our holiday rental trying to boil a foraged skull clean.

There are so many directions you could take this writing prompt in – from where the skull washed up from, how it ended up on this shore, or the person or creature who finds it and what they decide to do with it. Alternatively, what thoughts and dreams might have played out inside the shelter of this cranium?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Since moving to North Somerset, I’ve spotted some strange phenomena in woodland: coal-black baubles clinging to tree trunks. Some investigation told me this is an inedible fungus, Daldinia concentrica, known commonly King Alfred’s cakes, coal fungus, carbon fungus, tinder bracket or cramp balls (you might want to re-read that last one).

Though not edible by human, they’re apparently great firelighters, which is ironic since their nickname ‘King Alfred’s cakes’ is from the story of King Alfred trying to get onto the Great British Bake Off, but failing as he kept burning the cakes.

Not all of this is entirely true…

Apart the fungi is widespread in deciduous woodland on dead and decaying wood, especially beech and ash.

I love this blend of folklore and nature.

Can you use this as a leaping off point for a short story or other creative work?

Read more about these fungi on the Woodland Trust website.

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Strolling beside a local saltwater swimming pool, I spotted a visitor. Clevedon’s Marine Lake is replenished by high tides. Occasionally waves bring in fish, eels, and, in this case, beautiful moon jellyfish.

Imagine having the entire ocean at your disposal, and being swept into a patch of water with four seemingly insurmountable sides. Imagine if large splashy primates had infiltrated this space, and hungry predators, aka seagulls, lined the edge closest to the ocean you need to access to survive..

Imagine if your only hope of escape was a high tide and a vigorous wave.

Can you turn this #writingprompt into a tale?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

I had the pleasure recently of taking a voyage aboard the Waverley, the world’s last seafaring paddle-steamer, from Clevedon Pier. This floating museum featured viewing decks, cafes and bars, plus portholes offering views onto the churning paddle wheels that turn to drive the ship forwards or astern.

It’s a remarkable feat of engineering, and the perfect setting for a sea-going fantasy, mystery or even horror. Imagine peering through that porthole and seeing a face looking back!

However you choose to interpret the scene, let me offer two more senses to accompany the view – the sound of the pistons of the 2100 horsepower, triple expansion reciprocating steam engine, and the scent of the oil used to keep her running smoothly.

The ship named after Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels was built to replace the 1899 Waverley which was sunk on May 29, 1940 at Dunkirk. She carries tourists on trips across the Bristol Channel, as well as up the Clyde, The Western Isles and the Thames. A member of the crew commented as we docked that they’d be moored overnight offshore in the Bristol Channel and sleeping on board.

Really, anything could happen.

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

These open-topped canoes are stacked like drying plates in this boatyard all year round, except when they’re hauled to the shore and rowed by teams. The inactivity, as though they’re hibernating insects, struck me recently as I strolled by.

Add in the occasional ‘rush and row’ in salt water and this seems even more extreme – like they emerge for one day to mingle with others of their kind before being returned to this anticipatory torpor.

Or is that just my weird interpretation? What do you see when you look at these boats? What analogies can you draw between this scene and the natural world or human society?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

My hometown appears to boast an unusually high number of gates that lead to nowhere, other than thickets of spiky greenery. It’s a curious sight only becoming evident as spring runs away with itself and fills every available un-tizzied space.

It makes me feel nature is reclaiming parks and woodlands once tamed for human-enjoyment. Birds, insects and wild rabbits care nothing for neatness!

Some of these gates even lead to garden paths no one can possible access. Who might live in the home beyond these tangled trees? How do they survive? What made them choose this nature-enforced seclusion?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.