Alphabet Brainstorming Exercise

I’m working on making a prompt jar, I found the idea in the Art Journaller section of Art Scouts, but I’ll bet the basic concept has been found other places as well. The concept is to create a bunch of prompts for yourself that will be jumping off places for ideas. Art Journals, writing, pretty much any art form or even meditation can be sparked by prompts. There are sites that help provide prompts, there are books, and even cards to prompt you. But there is a difference in being prompted by others and being prompted by your own ideas. Ideas beget ideas. So I’m working on creating a set of my own prompts that will spark my own brain.

In thinking about how to make a large set of words for prompts, I came up with this idea that I thought I would share.

• Write the alphabet in a column on a large sheet of paper
  
• If you can orient it ‘landscape’ you’ll be able to fit more words
  
• You can skip X &/or Q if you want
  
• Start with A, write the first word that pops into your head, then go down to B, then C, and so on
  
• When you get to Z, start again at Z and go back up
  
• Don’t edit yourself-just don’t write the same word twice
  
• Keep going up and down, writing one word for each letter, until you’ve filled the page
  

I found it very interesting to find what popped into my head. Of course, the words I had already thought of led to the next words, so it was interesting to see how the going up words differed from the going down words.