For Your Journal: Writing Prompt

Do you keep a journal – or wish you could get one started? Literary Mama wants to help.

Three times a month, I’ll post a writing prompt. Open a notebook and write for 10 minutes. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation – just write. Then let the writing simmer and your mind wander for awhile.

And who knows? Maybe you’ll discover a character for your next short story or a theme for a narrative essay. Or maybe you’ll use the idea to create a special holiday card or photo album for someone in your family. However you decide to use your journal entry, I know you’ll enjoy re-reading it months–and years–down the road.
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Remembering Maurice Sendak, who passed away on May 8, 2012 —

Writer and illustrator, Maurice Sendak, is best known for his book, Where the Wild Things Are. Although it won the Caldecott Award and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1964, and was named one of the Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 1963 by the New York Times, it first received negative reviews from–and was banned by–librarians. His words and art have been discussed by every generation of parents, librarians, artists, and writers ever since.

Sendak is widely quoted that he didn’t write for children, but that children simply had a special understanding of his work. And he didn’t believe you had to have a child to write children’s books: “What you have to have is a memory of your own childhood.”

Interested in learning more about Sendak? The Maurice Sendak Collection at Philadelphia’s Rosenbach Museum & Library is home to 10,000 of his illustrations, manuscripts, photographs, proofs, and video interviews.

Journal Entry: Write about a “wild place” your imagination has taken you. What creatures were there, and what did you do? How did they respond to you?