Sarah's writing journal

I've been doing too much analytical and critical writing recently, and not enough creative, so when I turn to thinking about fiction or poetry, my brain (or imagination) feels lazy and wants to get back to facts. It's like a rusty old wheel that needs to be cranked up. So today on my dog walk, I made a note of what I saw ... a small schoolboy pushing his older sister in a wheelchair and bursting into tears because he couldn't manage to get her up the hill and his mother had to come over to help; a smartly dressed woman in a fur hat swearing like a sailor because the gate she wanted to take a short cut through was locked; a man I know has just been made redundant looking as if he was having to learn how to walk in a different way without his briefcase weighing him down on one side; a woman trailing a suitcase on wheels behind her like a dog suddenly skipping in the middle of the path; the park keeper telling me about an albino badger he's been feeding and how he thinks about it all the time; a previously beautiful man made ugly by the way he's shaved his head ...

And my writing prompt for today is to sit in three different public places and just write what I see and hear.