Your character has been delegated to chaperone some youngsters around the neighbourhood for Halloween trick or treating. Write the scene from the time they set off until they arrive back home. This is a chance to use some great description techniques bringing the atmosphere alive for your reader, and perhaps a chance to experiment with some humor writing, or alternatively some suspense/horror writing.

Think back over your life. Write about the best Halloween you can remember to date. Was it as a young trick-or-treater, or were you giving out the candy? Was it a night when you had the best costume in the neighbourhood, or the best date at the Vampire Dance? What made that night so special that it now stands out in your box of memories?

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Your exercise today is to incorporate all of the following words into an article, short story, poem or whatever comes to mind. You must use all of the words (in any order) to complete the exercise, but the context in which they are used is up to you. Think about the words for a few minutes before you start to write and see what pictures come to mind - then see if you can weave them all together into a piece of writing.

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What was the scariest movie you’ve ever watched? What scared you the most about it? Was it the atmosphere created by special effects or the actual story that frightened you? What scares you in real life? Write a paragraph on "My scariest experience to date".

Idea Seeds! Start your page with any of the following and see where your creative muse takes you:

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An exercise of setting (plus point of view) for fiction writer’s today. A character in your story is a young teenage girl (around 13-15). Describe the stores she shops from her perspective. What attracts her to these particular shops? Next, write a scene where she goes shopping with a parent where the store is described through the eyes of the parent.

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Timed Exercise! Set your watches, clocks or cooking timer for 20 minutes, write the title "The Disappearance" at the tope of your page and then start. Keep the writing going until your timer goes off. Fiction, non-fiction, personal memory – it doesn’t matter. Whatever the title brings to mind, write it down. When you timed session is over, read through what you’ve wrote – maybe there’s the start of a new work in progress there, or the bones of an article just needing some meat on it!

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Your exercise today is to incorporate all of the following words into an article, short story, poem or whatever comes to mind. You must use all of the words (in any order) to complete the exercise, but the context in which they are used is up to you. Think about the words for a few minutes before you start to write and see what pictures come to mind - then see if you can weave them all together into a piece of writing.

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Today, think about your ideal date. It could be a date that you’ve already experienced, or it could be entirely fantasy. You could be the person who is organising the date for someone you love, or you could describe the kind of date that you would love someone to arrange for you. Consider the perfect setting, meal, entertainment, etc. This is your ideal date remember, so money is no object!
For a little more "meat", fiction writers try to work this date into a short short story of no more than 500 words. Non-fiction writers, how about writing a "society" piece for your local paper as if you were an observer at this date which was between two local celebrities.

1. Melissa grabbed the paper cup filled with hot coffee just as the ground started to tremble…..
2. Edith, sitting in her usual place at the back of the Church, observed the……
3. "It’s wrong!" said Jermone, staring at the floor as our father clenched the report card in his hands. Wrong? I bet it was ….not! I hadn’t seen it but no-one……