Playing with language – Throughout the workbook, you’ll find suggestions for different kinds of writing. You might think about working with some of the poems, especially, as a way of thinking about writing your own poetry. Read the poems aloud. Listen to the rhythm. Think about the meaning of the words. Try substituting some of your own ideas or words – to change a poem and make it tell your story. Or play with songs you know – change to words to your words and try telling a story in song.

Making lists – another way to get started with writing is to just make lists of words and ideas. You might never use these lists – or you might go back to them to develop a thought in your journal, in a letter to a friend, in a short story, poem or narrative. Listen to language all around you. What are people saying? What are you saying? Stories and ideas are everywhere.

Time lines – sometimes a making a time line can help you organize your ideas, or list events in chronological order (what came first, what came second, then third, fourth, etc.). For example, if you wanted to make note of your daily routine, you might make the time line like this:

Your can make timelines for important events, life stories, or specific days, trips you’ve taken – anything. Making a time line can help you remember what you’ve done, and/or give you a way of putting down ideas that you might later use for other writing.

Word maps – sometimes people use single words to help them organize ideas. For example, if you want to write about cities, you might put the word cities in the middle of the page, and then draw lines from that word to other words or ideas connected to cities.

The word map is another way of brainstorming – just getting words down on paper, to capture ideas. You can use it to get your ideas in one place, especially if you’re not sure what the focus of your writing might be, and/or if you just want to get as many ideas down as quickly as possible. (Freewriting is also , different way of getting ideas down quickly – this is more of a sketch of ideas).