Everyone needs a pep talk now and then to help get through tough times when everything seems to be too much for us. Imagine you were writing a pep talk for someone you care about to help them get through a hard time in their lives. What would you say in the letter? What if it were a letter that you even write to yourself to be opened when you need to hear a good word. What are the comforting words you would write? Go to it!

You are in a frightening situation, one that you have never been in before. You try to catch your breath as you take stock of the circumstances. You know that if you can call up a certain smell, it will make you feel safe and protected. You also remember there is a certain memory that always erases your worries when you recall it. What is the ”safe” smell? What is that life-saving memory? Let it come back and protect you now.

”I, frankly, don’t dream, because I want to remain happy,” the late film actor Om Puri from India told a newspaper. ”When you dream too much and the dream doesn’t come true, you hurt yourself. And I don’t want to hurt myself. So I don’t dream. I take things as they are.”

Do you agree with what Om Puri says? Could you live your life without dreams because you were afraid of getting hurt if they didn’t come true?

You get to take one book, one food item, and one famous person (living or dead) to a deserted island. What and whom do you take? Why?

(This writing prompt idea is from Todd Finley writing for edutopia.org)

”None of them knew the color of the sky.”

This is the opening line from the novel, ”The Open Boat,” by Stephen Crane. Now, take this line as the opening of your writing for today and build a story with it. Use the line as the opening one for your story or poem or essay. Think about not knowing the color of the sky. What would that be like not to know the color of sky? Are the people blind? Are they underground? Are they hidden someplace? What should follow the opening line?

The idea for this writing prompt comes from Kim Stafford from his article in Teachers & Writers Magazine at: http://teachersandwritersmagazine.org/the-backward-prompt-using-great-first-lines-from-literature-to-invent-your-own-way-forward-3291.htm

Someone I know told me that each of us is allotted only a certain number of heart beats in life and that when they are used up, our life is over. I’m not sure he’s right about this, but I asked myself whom would I want to give some of my heart beats so that they could live longer. Whom do I love so much that I would give part of my allotted life?

I ask you the same question: to whom would you give some of your heart beats? Why that person or being?