30. Visit a Museum

Visit an art gallery or Museum. Take your sketchbook or journal and write about or draw what you see/like.

23. Words of Wisdom

Photo by risiblelady.

Anonymously write words of wisdom on the sidewalk with chalk

21. Draw on your Shower walls!

Some of my best ideas come when I'm in the shower & more often than not I wish I had something with which to record the thoughts. Now, a mini tape recorder in the bath or shower is probably not the best idea, and paper tends to get soggy. Then it hit me, why not buy a set of soap-crayons & draw on the shower walls?

It washes off, and is so much fun!

Baby Einstein Color & Learn Bath Crayons
	Play in the tub with these non-toxic, washable crayons. Fun for kids and adults alike! $4.99 | Buy Now

19. Dictionary Haikus

by Magister Spencer Boegeman.

If you're a word geek like me, you usually have a dictionary handy, so that whenever you come across a word with a curious tone to it, you can flip open your dicationary & look up, not only its meaning, but its etymological roots.

Why not try this:

Randomly flip open your dictionary & point to a word (or just choose a word on the page that you are drawn to)
Write the word down, and its definition or etymological root.
Keep doing this until you have enough words to inspire a Haiku.

General rules for Haiku:

• 3-short lines
  
• 1-season word (any word that might allude to the time of year)
  
• 1-cutting word
  
• no rhyme or metaphor
  
• (17 syllables, usually 5-7-5, although in the English language this is less stringent)

If you're unsure as to How to write a Haiku, check out Haiku for People.


Examples:

One day of early spring
A snowman melts
I drink it
- Kenjiro HIgashi

After the storm
A boy wiping the sky
From the tables
- Darko Plazanin

17. Write a story

Write a story beginning with:

• As a child I….
  
• I remember….
  
• The last time I….
  
• Today I saw | heard | noticed….

14. Record Your Day

Photo by AndrewMorrell.

Take a small tape recorder or digital recorder with you & record the sounds you encounter in your day. Come home and make a written or pictorial transcript of the recording.

8. Listening Meditation

Be still. Be silent. Listen to every sound around you for 5 minutes. Try to write down each of the sounds, describing exactly what you heard.

You can do this in your living room, a meadow, a park, in the middle of a mall, a bookstore, coffee shop - wherever you feel drawn. Take your journal or sketchbook, find a comfortable, out of the way, place to sit and begin listening. If it helps, close your eyes. Do not focus on one particular conversation or sound, but allow your attention to float to all of the sounds around you.

After several (or 5) minutes, begin to write about the experience. Try to recall how certain sounds made you feel. Did anything strike your funny bone? Did you hear different conversations juxtaposing? were any of the sounds jarring? soothing? etc.

5. Eating Meditation

Treat yourself to a bag of really good trail mix or granola, find a quiet, comfortable place to sit and relax. Close your eyes, put your hand in the bag of trail mix (or granola) and pull out one piece. Study it with your fingers (eyes still closed). Put it in your mouth, but don’t chew. Instead, roll the piece of food around your tongue, feel the texture, allow it to roll from the tip of your tongue to the middle and sides before you bite into it. Once you bite, chew slowly making note of every texture and taste. Try this several times with different pieces of trail mix. When you’re done, write about the experience.

3. Be a Photographer

Take a camera with you wherever you go for an afternoon:

• Take pictures of the people you encounter (with their permission, of course). Develop or download the pictures, then write small vignettes about each person or encounter.
  
• Take close up pictures of various objects. Develop or download the pictures and make up a story to go with the object.
  
• Purposefully take blurry, off-center, or bad photographs (a la Uta Barth)- Develop or download + print the images, Frame them & have your own living room | gallery exhibit. Give each photograph an appropriate (or off-the-wall) title. Have an opening complete with food and beverages & invite friends and family.

2. Be a Thing Finder

Collect objects that you find on your walk, bring them home:

• Draw them
  
• Collage them into your journal
  
• write about them:
  
  • how did you found the "thing"?
    
  • What is the secret life of the thing found - where did it come from, how did it end up there...
  
  
• set up a mini-museum in which to display your best weekly finds [change it each week]
  
• Write descriptive tags for them & display them in your house somewhere
  
• Write descriptive or story tags for them, and leave them somewhere for someone else to find