Highly recommend the 642 Things to Write About journal. Good range of broad to super specific writing prompts. Obviously you can keep responses autobiographical but it's always more fun to get imaginative with it. Some are explicitly creative, like this one.
PROMPT: “Put two people who hate each other in an elevator for 12 hours. What happens?”
Specifically, one of them, 56-year-old Harold, finally feels compelled after a few hours to mutter some low-power spells. They should have been enough to pull the elevator upwards and wrench the doors apart. But they yield a big, fat, agonizing nothing.
Time to try something a little less elementary.
He digs through his fanny pack and retrieves a piece of bright magenta chalk. Scrunching his brows in memory, he slowly traces out a circle and fills it with several triangles, a dizzying rose curve design, and a few smudgy symbols. More rummaging. He flicks out a penknife and pricks his finger. Two drops of blood per symbol . . . right? Boy, he really is getting rusty.
Harold sits pretzel-style beside the circle and begins the intricate spell.
All this time, his fellow passenger, a 29-year-old Methodist named Elysse, has been ping-ponging her gaze between him and the bare walls, barely able to keep the fear and disgust off her face. When Harold breaks out the knife, she upgrades her fevered mental prayers for rescue to murmured ones. He ignores her with equal scorn.
Finally, a few more hours later, the metal box jerks into motion and light erupts through opening doors. The air sizzles with energy. Hallelujah! both think.
Elysse has a powerful story for her Bible study group that week, of an angel’s triumph against the dark arts. Harold goes home irritated about the long wait, not knowing which was more to blame—his elevatormate’s invocations or his own out-of-practice skills.
