Seasonal Writing & Blogging Photo Prompts

Summer Writing Prompts

By Chris Dunmire

Sunny hot vibrant energy! In some parts of the world, warm summer weather starts in June, stretches through July, and winds down in August. In other parts of the world, the heat is on all of the time! But summer is not only about hot temperatures and school vacations, for it's a season experienced planet-wide and means different things to different cultures.

These summer-themed writing prompts and photos will WARM YOU UP and breathe new inspiration into your creative stories, blog entries, and reflections for the summer season no matter where and how you experience it. And please, take a break to cool down if your writing gets too hot for you!

Writing Prompt 1:

Summer Photo Inspiration:
When do you feel the arrival of summer has come? When school lets out? In mid-June? On the first day that reaches 85 degrees? Does summer assert itself into being just by calendar days or by other environmental factors too?

Writing Prompt 2:

Write about one of the five senses (related to your summer experience):

• The smells of summer
• The sights of summer
• The sounds of summer
• The touch of summer
• The tastes of summer

Writing Prompt 3:

What is your favorite summer memory? How old were you when it happened? For 10 minutes relive that memory through writing about it as if you were right there recording it in real time.

Writing Prompt 4:

Summertime conjures up images of full-blooming nature, fluttering butterflies, and nighttime crickets. It also reflects sweltering sheets, stagnant heat, and restless nights where flipping over a cool pillow is the only way to survive. Write a poem that captures a summer evening's essence in all of its beauty or beast-ness.

Writing Prompt 5:

This windmill is from an early 1900s guest riding ranch in the Chiricahua National Monument Mountains in Southern Arizona. Can you imagine how visitors spent long summer days riding horses through the steep mountain hills and valleys? What does this remind you about your favorite outdoor summer activities?

Writing Prompt 6:

Do you like the summer heat or do you spend most of your time in the cool, air-conditioned indoors? How do you think people coped with the heat before air conditioning and electric fans were invented?

Writing Prompt 7:

Did you ever climb trees when you were a child? How high did you go? Did you ever fall out of the tree? And how did the thick, full-leaved tree branches during summer insert themselves into your childhood play?

Writing Prompt 8:

Summer Photo Inspiration
Full, green thriving trees. Some trees are a hundred or more years old. Imagine living through 100 years of summers, watching families picnic, children play, outdoorsmen fish, and hikers blaze the trails. Imagine you are one of these trees. What have you seen in your vision of history?

Writing Prompt 9:

Imagine the weather gods suddenly decided that the summer season would be no more. Seasons would go from Spring to Fall to Winter. What does that prospect invoke in you? Are you happy? Sad? Glad? Mad?

Writing Prompt 10:

Summer flowers are one of nature's most beautiful works of art. What other natural art does summer bring forth from the earth, sea, or sky?

Writing Prompt 11:

What do you think the symbolism of summer is in relation to the human life span?

Writing Prompt 12:

What is the summer season like where you live? How is it different from other parts of the world?

Writing Prompt 13:

Summer Photo Inspiration
"Knee high by the Fourth of July", "Don't swim for an hour after you eat", and "Dog days of summer". What other summer-related sayings come to your mind, and what does this image inspire in you?

Writing Prompt 14:

Go with the flow: Choose a prompting word from the following list and write about whatever comes to mind for five minutes without stopping.

Prompting Words List:

Sunny, warm, Fourth of July, picnics, outdoors, sunshine, hot, sticky, sweltering, insects, bugs, camping, swimming, Father's Day, dry, desert, air conditioning, electric fans, cooling, fishing, lakes, boating, summer, corn, carnivals, festivals, parades, beach, fun, celebrate, biking, hiking, campfires, pools, outdoors, Labor Day, watermelon, marshmallows, hot dogs, volleyball, horseshoes, Frisbee, sand castles, ice cream

Writing Prompt 15:

Summer Photo Inspiration:
If you live where summer is between 80 and 100 degrees for only three months out of the year, can you imagine living in a region where it is always hot and sticky? These Saguaro Cactus grow in Tucson, Arizona, where conditions are always hot and sunny. Could you live in the desert? Would you?

Updated 7/31/14