Your writing brain has turned into a lump of frozen hamburger meat. The only way to thaw out your creativity is to write, and if you don't know what to write, here is a list of writing prompts. A gentle nudge towards getting words on the page.
Writing prompts are always helpful.
My cats thought writing prompts about cats would be a good idea. The cats, Charlie, Nepeta, JR and Harper helped me write Ten Cat Writing Prompts.
Ten Cat Writing Prompts
Harper the kitten helps with the illustration.
1. The cat scratched at the door.
2. There was no money to buy cat food.
3. The cat walked out the door when the wind blew the door open.
4. The cat thought she was a dog.
5. The cat met the Queen of England.
6. The dog admitted cats are better than dogs.
7. A dirty litter box.
8. The cat saved the baby's life.
9.The cat was an author and taught kittens how to read.
10. The cat jumped onto a speeding car.
My dog Martha just noticed the list of Cat Writing Prompts and wanted a list for dogs as well. Martha, the dog, helped me write these prompts.
Ten Dog Writing Prompts
Martha wants to be a private detective.
1. The dog walked around the world.
2. The dog saved the baby from the speeding car.
3. The dog was served steak every day on a silk pillow.
4. The cat admitted dogs are better than cats.
5. The dog had a pedicure once a week at the beauty parlor.
6. The dog learned how to drive a car.
7. The dog spoke Japanese and worked for a Japanese bank.
8. The dog was a secret agent.
9. The dog was The Queen of England for a day.
10. The dog helped Santa deliver toys on Christmas Eve.
Martha wanted me to add one more prompt. The dog was allowed to sleep on the bed. But I told her not to get any ideas. She still has to sleep on the floor beside the bed.
What do you do when your brain is like a lump of frozen hamburger meat? What do you do when you don't have any story ideas? Do you get ideas from your cat or dog? Let us know in the comments section.
PRACTICE
Please choose one of the writing prompts and write for fifteen minutes. Once I clean my seven litter boxes I will be read the story you wrote to my four cats, Charlie, Nepeta, JR, and Harper the kitten, but we call her Baby, and the two dogs Annie and Martha.
When you are finished, please post your practice in the comments section. I look forward to reading your stories.
xo
Pamela, Charlie, Nepeta, JR, Harper, Annie and Martha
No comments? What about the aliens that captured all the cats and dogs? Now all we have is our pet monkeys, gerbils, mice, snakes, spiders, birds and fish. I like a pet monkey, he could probably do more than my dog could do anyways.
Thankfully the aliens did not capture my cats and dogs. Did they get your dog a Guy Who Types?
Perhaps a pet monkey could help you with Writers Block?
I wish the aliens had taken the spiders and snakes. Perhaps they will come back and we can give them to the aliens.
xo
Pamela
St. Patrick really was a Saint Bernard, and he filled the Anglia up with all the snakes there were, He got carefully in the front seat, started the engine, engaged the gear, slipped the clutch out and drove all the snakes clear out of Ireland.
Hello Bob Ranck,
Did he take the snakes to The United States? I don’t like snakes, but I like cats.
xo
Love Martha
Hello A Guy Who Types,
Would you please tell me what the aliens look like? I won’t let them in the house. Thank you for the warning.
All my best,
xo
Love Martha
Awww…this is too cute…awww…I have never used writing prompts, but these might change my mind 😀 #Writing
Hello Krithaka,
If you use one of Martha’s prompts, she is going to reply to you. Have you ever had your stories read by a dog?
xo
Pamela
All of the above posts are fantastic and amusing, created by the clever prompts of cats and Martha.
My dear Krithika,
I have never been called cute. I assume you were referring to me? I hope you had a nice day.
xo
Love Martha
cat prompt #10, and dog prompt # 8… Next story. Ninja cat steals Air Dog One and flies it to Kitty Central. Secret agent Dog has to find, and capture Ninja cat plus, bring home Air Dog One. If secret agent Dog fails, Cats would take over and run the country instead of dogs. Cats would live in fancy houses and dogs would be forced into those tiny doghouses outside in the cold.
Hello my dear Susan Barker,
As a secret agent dog, I can assure you I will not fail on my mission. However, it is your story, and you get to decide the ending. If the cats do take over the country, will you please put in a good word with the Cat leader, and allow dogs to live inside.
Your choice of prompts is very exciting and dramatic. All my best.
xo
Love Martha
Martha’s #6 prompt;
I often took my Dog Matilda, whom we call Mattie, with me in the car.
She loved to jump into the back seat of my little 2 door sedan and as large as she is, she’d find a way of getting comfortable back there. Besides, she didn’t like to stay home alone. She never really told me that but the look in her eyes as I rubbed her head and chin on my way out the door conveyed the message.
On this particular day, I thought I would bring her with me as I was going to run some errands that didn’t require me to leave her in the car for an extended time. I opened the driver’s door and before I could pop the seat forward to allow her space to get in, she jumped onto the drivers’s seat and wouldn’t budge.
“Mattie.” I laughed at the sight of her sitting on her rear end with one paw resting on the bottom of the steering wheel, “get out”.
She turned her face to me and then quickly turned back staring out the front window.
“Are you nuts?” I spoke louder than intended but still thinking that this behavior was unusual as well as quite funny.
I pulled on her collar trying to encourage her to get out of my seat. I pushed on her butt trying to lift her between the front seats into the back. Matilda is a 75 pound Labrador and Hound Dog. She is about 5 or 6 years old. My husband and I got her from a woman who rescues dogs of all breeds. The minute we saw her, three years ago, we fell in love. Other than her barking at the mailman or any other man or woman who tries to deliver a package to our door, she is a gentle, well behaved, loving pooch.
After several attempts to either get her to move to the back or get out, I finally decided to call her bluff, and shut the door.
“Bye”, I called to her through the closed window.
Hello dgk,
Thank you for choosing one of my prompts.
I am so curious to know if Matilda drove away after you said, “Bye.”
I loved how she turned her face to you when you told her to get out, and then she looked out the front window again.
A fun story.
xo
Love Martha
Martha’s Number One prompt, which is rather appropriate:
Sugar opened one brown eye and rolled it toward the alarm clock. It was way past time to get up. If Mom didn’t wake up soon, drastic measures would have to be taken, including licking her face and toes. Today was the day they were going to set off together on a ‘walkabout’, a word Mom was using to describe them going outside and smelling things on all seven continents.
Sugar wasn’t too sure about this adventure, although normally she was up for anything. Around the world seemed like a long way to go just to pee on a few things. And it would be hot. And then cold. And then hot again. What if they couldn’t find something to eat? What if the new places they visited didn’t have can openers? What if the people they saw outside were suspicious looking, but there were too many of them to investigate properly? It’s hard to check the perimeters when there are no perimeters. Sugar took the job of perimeter checking very seriously, even though she hadn’t received a paycheck in like, forever.
In seconds, she was ready to set out. She was tricked out in little saddlebags, filled with chewies, Mr. Squeak, Liver Snaps, and a few cans of dog food. The leash could just stay at home, as far as she was concerned. Mom was taking a lot longer to get ready. Humans had so much more to pack.
Soon enough they were ready to go. Sugar sure hoped Mom could keep up with her. After all, Sugar had four-paw drive, and could bound up hills without even trying. Mom swung her backpack up over her shoulders, and remarked how heavy it was. And what was that clanking sound?
As they set out, Sugar looked longingly back at the ten cans of dog food and the can opener sitting forlornly on the front steps. She sure hoped they’d still be there when they got back.
Oh my Gigi J Wolf,
Your Sugar sounds so brave and adventurous. Even though she was a bit hesitant at first, in a matter of seconds she was ready to go.
Humans have such a hard life. Deciding what shoes to wear, and they have to have clean clothes every day. Did you tell Sugar what the clanking sound was in your backpack? Telling the story from the dog’s perspective was very refreshing.
I wish you all my best on your adventure.
This is a true story, right?
xo
Love Martha
Dear Martha,
As soon as Mom and I get to a place here in the Himalayas that has WiFi, I will Skype you. Mom sometimes lets me use the computer if I promise not to drool on it. She’s given up on the clean clothes thing; it’s not easy finding washing machines in some of these crazy places we’ve been.
I miss my own sofa!
Yours in adventure,
Sugar
Sugar, Sugar, Sugar,
I am so excited for you. I would love to Skype with you. And, clean clothes are overrated, it takes at least two weeks before clothes start to smell.
If you are ever in Pennsylvania, I will share my rug with you. I don’t go on the sofa.
What a fun adventure.
p.s. What was the clanking sound in the backpack?
xo
Love Martha
This story made the dog seem very human, with the same things humans generally want. Which was interesting to me. I loved the last paragraph, it is super funny. I sit forlornly when there is a treat out of my step too.
The dog learned to drive the pickup? Never. The dog knows the best place to be is right in the middle of the pickup truck. Behind the wheel, you have to work, to stay alert, to drive, to yell at the dog when the dog sees a cat and barks. So no, behind the wheel is not the best place to be.
On the passengers side? Not really. Oh yeah it’s nice to stick your head out the window, until you get a bee in the face, and that ain’t fun at all. Besides, the guy sitting on the passengers side is expected to get out at each gate, open it, close it, and then get back in the truck. He also has to shout at the dog when the dog sees that blasted cat again, and barks. Again, all of that is work.
Nope, the best place to be is between the passenger and the driver, looking out the window for that stupid cat.
Hello Gary G Little,
Your dog is very smart. A smart dog doesn’t want to open and close the gate. Or drive. Perhaps one day I can ride with the dog too.
xo
Love Martha
Pamela,
What a wonderful, light-hearted idea! I love it!
Believe it or not, some of those prompts fit perfectly with a series idea that’s been percolating since sometime around 2008 or 2009.
Can you say a dog and cat detective team. Perhaps I should consult with the contributors to this post for technical advice!
Thanks for cheering me up and reminding me of these two lurking characters.
Hello Carrie Lynn Lewis,
I am delighted you liked our prompt ideas. Pamela was beside herself trying to think of what to write. So the cats and I helped her.
Your story ideas sounds so fun. Cats and dogs really can be friends. If you need any technical advice my email address is thedogmartha@gmail.com.
I am glad our post cheered you up. And hello to your cat and dog detective team.
xo
Love Martha
Martha,
Thank you very much! I appreciate the offer. I may have to resurrect Thomas (cat) and Inky (black lab) and the case of the missing race horse. You’ve given me hope!
A cat and dog detective team sound like fun!
The Dog Was A Secret Agent
Yes, that’s right, a secret agent. We didn’t know this at the start of our relationship, but in those days, we – both the dog and I – took each other pretty much at face value.
Yeah, I know, it’s not the way things are ordinarily done around here, but that’s the way we did it.
I was taking down the Christmas decorations from above the fireplace when Big Jimmie came barging into my place. Straight through the kitchen and round the corner, right into the parlor he stomped, with this dog under his arm like he was just bringing in the evening paper. Things didn’t look quite right from the start, because Big Jimmie had the dog wrong-end-around, the head and forepaws dangling from under his arm and the dog’s rump and hindlegs above his wrist. “Bugs!” he shouted. ‘Think quick!” and with
that he tossed the dog directly at my head.
Bib Jimmie and I have known and tormented each other for thirty years, and this was nothing new. He did this once to me with a live, five pound river carp when we were teenagers fishing in the drainage canal. That time, I didn’t even try to catch it; I flailed, faltered, and fell backwards into the stinking water. I plotted revenge deliciously for a week, until something else happened.
The next time he did it, we were running from someone – cops, bailbondsman, irate women, I can’t remember now – but we were in the woods, it was late fall and cold as hell. I was bitching about the cold and he snatched up a blazing pine knot out of our small campfire and tossed THAT straight at my face, again muttering, “Think quick!” As improbable as it seemed, I caught the damned thing, but tripped and fell backward – again – over a tree root this time, and rolled with my face in the fiery pine knot. That’s how my left eyebrow got that funny, burned-off-at-the-end scar. Anyway, again I plotted revenge, but at night in the woods in the late fall in the upper part of this state, it generally gets too cold too quick to even think revenge, much less extract it.
But back to this dog. I caught the critter, deftly this time. In thirty years, Big Jimmie gave
me a lot of practice. But I got my heel caught in the tinsel and fell on my kiester again, and wound up with the dog sitting on belly, and licking my face – probably trying to clean off the last smear of Goofy Ruby’s apple-tart that I was eating when Jimmie
tossed the mutt.
See, that was the first clue that this was no ordinary dog – he wasn’t at all flapped by the toss, the catch, or the landing. He KNEW how to land. Cats got that by instinct, dogs gotta work at it and though a lot of ‘em do pretty good at it, this woofer did it like it was an ordinary thing. It was a result of training that I didn’t fully recognize or appreciate at first.
“Scuze me, pooch,” I said, directly in his face, as I tried to sit up and get disentangled from the tinsel and lights. It just then that I noticed he had on a black bow-tie. What
the hell? On a dog, fer cryin’out loud.
“Get it straight, Bugs. His name’s Bond”, Big Jimmie said, looking down and laughing at me on the floor. “At least that’s what he wants to be called. He answers to that.”
Raising myself now on one elbow as the dog deftly stepped from my stomach to the floor, I asked the dog, “Bond, huh?”
The dog responded by nodding his head gently and offering his right forepaw. I took it and shook it, kind of gentleman-to-gentleman, and damned if the little fellow didn’t reply with an affirmative “Woof.”
Well, that settled it, Bond he was. I said, “OK, guy, I’m Bugs. I run this joint here and Goofy Ruby over there does the food thing,” pointing to my wife.
Bond turned in an instant, padded on over to where Ruby was laughing, still
holding the other end of the lights and tinsel, and honest, this dog did a little bow, pulling that right forepaw under and ducking his front end and lowering his head way down, his nose almost touching the floor in front of her.
Oh my, Mr. Bob Ranck.
You have totally brought Bond to life. And, Big Jimmie and Bugs have so much character all ready. I want to know more.
May I meet Bond? Or is he only fictionalized? My, my, my. You made him so real.
The only word I was not sure about was “keister.” Is that a form of sausage?
Mr. Ranck. Do you always have so much fun writing?
I hope to buy your book next year about Bond. It should take about a year, right?
xo
Love Martha
Thanks, Sandra. Glad you found it fun reading. It was the greatest of FUN writing it , too.
Martha, you are so kind. Bond does exist, at least in part, and in my own household, currently holding office as “Senior Dog”. Big Jimmie really did enter with him that way, upside down and toss him to me January 5, 2006. That exercise has set me on the path to a longer story about Bugs, Big Jimmie and Bond, in their endeavors to succeed in their own jobs, to find security in life, to always remain in the good graces of Goofy Ruby, and, in their own way, to fight crime.
Thank you for your gracious comments.
Martha, sorry I missed this. “KEISTER” is/was a word in fashion over half a century ago meaning duff,, bum, hind-end, back-side, rear, prat, tush. the sitting-down-parts. Probably derived from some german/jewish-New York slang, Don’t know the origin, but it was a common word when Bugs and Big Jimmie were growing up in the Philly area.
This was really fun reading.
2 minute writing sentences.
1. The cat scratched at the door. He left deep marks into the door. His hiss was contorted as the wind howled through leaves behind him. I would not let the cat in here though.
2. There was no money to buy cat food. Fred was angry I guess you could say. But it was more of a displeased look set with the expression of not caring about anything that always seemed to be there.
I patted him on the head when he slowly made his way to the food dish that morning, sorry not today, I have to keep the checking account balanced you see. Yowl… he said lazily and then let out a big yawn and then slowly made his way back to bed.
3. The cat walked out the door when the wind blew the door open. Blue and orange mottled streaks went through its fur. Its eyes like dark orange marbles shined in the midnight light. A strange wind seemed to only grow.
Oh my Sandra D,
Your short sentences are full of drama, emotion, and suspense.
“His hiss was contorted”
“Slowly made his way,
“blue and orange mottled streaks went through his fur.
“as strange wind seemed to only grow.”
A repeat on wind in the last sentence from the second sentence.
I would really like to know more about this cat. And this person who wouldn’t buy food for the cat.
Should I call the authorities, or is this a fiction story. I am concerned about the cat.
Your writing really made me care.
All my best,
xo
Love Martha
no I actually have no pets at all. Just an occasional meandering beetle makes its way across my back steps, and then I just hope that it will be able to forage independently. If I had a caring cuddly creature in my house, i probably wouldn’t have been able to write that sentence. So never fear! heh. But yes I wonder why he won’t buy food for his cat, and why his cat doesn’t care! I do wonder, but I don’t know either.
Thanks for caring, these mythical pets do appreciate it..
Sandra
Hello Pam,
Your cats’ and dog’s writing prompts are inspiring. I will decide on which title to develope into a story. There are ten to choose from and all of them provoke me.
Meanwhile, here’s a poem for you. I hope you like it.
I said to my Minnie
“Come over here,
“Don’t worry, Minnie
You need have no fear,
You are the best kitty
That I ever saw.
Come, Minnie, Minnie,
Give me your paw.”
To get her to come
I gave her some milk.
I stroked her black coat
It was smooth as soft silk
When she had her fill
She rolled on the floor,
Without looking back
She made straight for the door.
A big hug for you, the cats and Martha.
Lilian
Oh, my dearest Lillian,
This is the sweetest poem. Is this a true story? Do you really have the best kitty called Minnie?
If you do, will you please post a picture here of Minnie? We have two black cats who live here.
And a big hug for you from all of us, Me, Martha, Annie, the other dog, and the four cats, Charlie, Nepeta, JR, and Harper.
Oh and Pamela sends you a hug too.
xo
Love Martha