A Year of writing prompts: 1 September

How to use these prompts

Who are these people?
Adventurers who have reached a lake or sea and must either turn back or find a way across?
Or a group of people at the end of their summer, wistfully looking back on it before they head home? How did their summer go? What lies ahead?

Prompts

1. The First Day of School.
2. In New Zealand, it's National Random Acts of Kindness Day. Write about a random act of kindness.
3. "The trouble with the rat race is even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin
4. The asteroid Juno was discovered on this date in 1804. In astrology it rules relationships, marriage, true love, soul mates, diplomacy, fashion, women's rights, the weather, marital abuse, bitterness and betrayal. Pick one or more of these and make it/them the theme of a story.
5. The first training school for clowns was established in Florida in 1968. Write a story set in a clown school.

Character Names

Linda, Samuel, Simeon, Verena, Ethan, Opal, Joshua, Beatrice, Tammy, Tamara, Sam

Character Traits

• Interested in the mysteries and curiosities of nature, the abnormal and supernatural.
• Tend to be fatalistic.
• Possibly psychic.
• May come from a large family with several siblings. Marriages may not be happy, though as their spouse may be lazy and irascible.
• Lucky with money but the luck may be negated by their generosity to people who use them. These people are likely to be female. They will not listen to warnings about them.
• Tend to think the best of people and find it hard to distinguish between friends and enemies.
• Like to dress smartly.
• Fond of walking and hiking.
• Enjoy travel, and are avid readers of novels. May become authors.
• May have a disability.
• Dubious events such as financial gains linked to sex, illegitimate births or divorce bring unexpected benefits, even honours.
• Enjoy investigating things which could lead them to a career as a spy, private detective or journalist.
• May be disadvantaged or victimised.
• Danger they may murder someone.
• Efficient and helpful; will take on routine tasks which occupy their outer mind but their inner mind will be elsewhere.
  

Possible Themes

Perception; seeing beyond.

The balance of logic and spiritual vision.

Secret service and government agencies. 

Conspiracy theories.

Eavesdropping.

Objects

A tripod; an apple; a bag of money; shadows; binoculars; a pond covered in reeds.