Matinée Muse, now in its third week, is a blog that presents two weekly creativity prompts based on movie themes. You can participate in this online community by following three steps:
- Use the Matinée Muse prompts to inspire your creativity. (You don't have to write about the movie, though you may.)
- Write a poem or a short story, or create some artwork or take a photograph—related to one of the prompts.
- After you have created your work, post it to your site, and add that post's link to the comments of the Matinée Muse post.
Other MM members will visit your post and comment on your work. If you haven't participated in an online-prompt community before, introduce yourself by commenting on other's posts; many (if not all) of the bloggers you visit will click through to see your work in return.
Participating in online-prompt communities can have many benefits:
-- If you create every week consistently, you get regular practice in your art form and, thus, get better at it.
-- You build a body of work over time. (A year of doing the weekly prompts = 52 new works! What a vibrant, current portfolio that would be.)
-- Seeing other takes on the same prompt expands and challenges your interpretation of the prompt. I consider this healthy artistic and intellectual brain exercise.
-- If you're suffering from a writing or art-making block, switching creative gears for a moment and approaching a prompt with lightness and fun can keep you creating. Keeping creative energy flowing builds your momentum and staves off long creative dry spells which can deplete artistic energy.
-- Regularly commenting on other bloggers' works creates an online creative community and network.
One extra bonus for movie lovers: MM features movie poster images and links to more information about all films mentioned. One of this week's prompts is based on the classic whose poster is shown above.
