Introduction
In what way does the weather affect your mood? Consider the different types of weather and possible positive and negative connotations you might have with them.
Using weather-themed prompts can evoke emotions and creativity in writing, as well as examining your own reactions to the environment.
Weather Journaling Prompt 1: Stormy Seas
Consider a stormy sea.
Spend five minutes describing the scene.
Use all of your senses.
Now consider this turned inwards, either for yourself or a character.
Spend five minutes writing about a personal challenge as turbulent as a stormy sea.
Spend five minutes reflecting on the lessons learned and growth experienced during difficult times.
Weather Journaling Prompt 2: Sunshine After Rain
Take a few minutes, think about a random act of kindness you’ve received, and write a few lines or a paragraph about it.
Next, think about a kindness you’ve done for someone else. Something altruistic, spontaneous, or thoughtful. Tiny or huge. But kind all the same.
Take a minute or two and write about your own moment of kindness. How did it feel to do something for someone else? How did the recipient react? Did they even realise what you’d done?
By Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
Weather Journaling Prompt 3: Whispers in the Wind
Have you ever felt like the wind was quietly whispering guidance to you? Maybe it was a subtle nudge, a gut feeling, or an unexplainable pull toward a certain decision or path.
Take a moment to reflect on times in your life when you’ve felt that pull. Maybe it was a decision that didn’t make sense logically, but you just knew it was right. Or perhaps it was a path you followed despite doubt or uncertainty because deep down, you trusted where it was leading you.
The Whisper: Describe a moment when your intuition spoke to you. How did it feel? Was it a quiet nudge, a strong pull, or something in between?
The Path: What decision or action did that inner voice guide you toward? Was it easy to trust it, or did you wrestle with doubt along the way?
Looking Back: How did things turn out when you followed your intuition? Was it what you expected, or did it lead you somewhere surprising?
Listening In: How can you tune in more closely to those whispers in the wind in your daily life? What helps you hear and trust your inner guidance more clearly?
Weather Journaling Prompt 4: Rainbows
Search out a rainbow in your home or while out and about.
Find something for each of the colours of the spectrum: red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, and white.
Can you assign a sense to each colour or object?
What emotions and memories do they evoke?
Spend ten minutes writing about colour. What colour is anxiety? How does a particular colour make you feel?
Conclusion
Incorporating weather-themed journal prompts into your daily routine can be a refreshing way to explore your thoughts and emotions, much like how the weather shapes our surroundings. It can also be an effective way to examine your characters and their inner and outer feelings. The weather has become a trope in some genres such as horror - it was a dark stormy night. Can you subvert these? Can you use the weather in an unusual way?
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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