Maybe you have absolutely no idea where to start but have always wanted to try being a writer. Maybe you want to write the great American novel or you thought you'd write a poem about hidden life of a grain of sand. Maybe you just need a little inspiration to get you started or you find yourself just a little stuck. Maybe you find yourself trying to break out of your comfort zone or mix things up at work. Whatever your reason for landing here, practicing a little creativity can impact your life in ways you didn't expect.
But let's be honest. Creativity is a muscle and it needs exercise to work properly. That's where this series comes in. With any luck, this series will get your creative juices flowing and get you thinking in ways you hadn't before. A new prompt will appear once or twice a week this summer. It's up to you what you do with it.
Oh, and be sure to check out our Community-Written Stories books and help us add to one of six stories we are writing and circulating this summer.
Writing Prompt for June 15th, 2021:
The world works a lot differently than it did in the Middle Ages. I'm not just talking about not having indoor plumbing or only 5% of the population being able to read or write. Clothing was all homespun, transportation was limited primarily to foot or wagon, meat was a luxury of the rich (as was gout), and most towns had to have at least one blacksmith. In the Middle Ages, blacksmithing was a highly respected skilled trade, often seen as an art. If you had a horse that needed to be able to travel on roads, you would head over to the blacksmith to have it shoed. They actually made everything from door nails to weapons, jewelry to farm equipment. Anything metal or had metal components was made by a blacksmith. These days, while blacksmithing still exists, chances are most people have never met one. It certainly looks a lot different.
Where Ye Olde Blacksmithery might have had a dozen different types of hammers, a stone fire pit equipped with bellows, barrels of water, anvils, tongs, and who knows what other basic equipment, modern blacksmith workshops are closer to factories. Dozens of machines do many of the tasks traditional blacksmiths would have had to do by hand with basic equipment. Where once they might have had to rely on basic metals, modern blacksmiths work with all sorts of alloys like aluminum and titanium. Apprenticeships work differently too. Basically, though the profession still exists, the two might as well be from different planets.
So here is your prompt for the week:
You are a blacksmith in the Middle Ages.
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