So we’ve finally arrived at the 26^th letter of the alphabet for our weekly creative writing prompts/exercises. And because ‘Z’ is associated with cartoon characters getting some sleep, that’s where I’m going today (I bet you thought I’d default to ‘zebra’, didn’t you? Ha!)

Of course, The Big Sleep of Raymond Chandler’s classic novel refers to death, but I’m not planning any of that yet!

I will be taking a bit of break from the weekly prompts after today, though.

Meanwhile, use the idea of sleep  (that is, lots of zzzz) as a starting point for this week’s piece of writing. You can create a poem, memoir, flash fiction, story, novel (!), whatever, this week, your choice. But try linking it to aspects of sleeping.

Your story’s main character could have fallen asleep on the train to wake up at the wrong destination. Or someone might have fallen asleep and woken up in a different era (I love time-slip tales!). You may write a poem about the difficulties of falling asleep – or how easy it is to wake up without an alarm. What about a childhood memory of falling asleep in an unfamiliar bed on holiday, or when visitors came to take over your space?

Or try taking a children’s story which features a sleeping character and re-work it, such as Sleeping Beauty.  Or a fable, like Aesop’s Hare and the Tortoise (where one of them takes an ill-advised nap).

I’ve included a picture here of Linus, my almost cat-size kitten who is very fond of sleeping. And to balance things up, here’s my canine friend Tully, who can often be found asleep in the sun among the herbs in my garden.

So that’s it for the moment. Keep writing, keep being inspired, try to get published if that’s your thing, but don’t worry if its not, just enjoy the process. My favourite wordsmithing right now is in journal entries about the minutiae of my life, words which are satisfying for me to write, but which I’ve no intention of sharing. Of course, I change my mind as often as my underwear, so I may try sending out some more of my work again soon…