Writing and Thinking Creatively - Resources

Created on: 15 Jan 2021 | Last modified: 07 Jun 2023

Here we present some exercises, examples, and tools that can spark your creative writing ideas and develop your practices.

National Writing Day 2022 focused on why young people write - be it for wellbeing, about climate action, for social connection. Activities to engage in each of these topics are available on the First Story website. 

National Writing Day 2021 focused on connection, and challenged participants to write 'in the box' be that Twitter's 280 characters, or a post-it note. Ideas to get you going are available on the First Story website.

National Writing Day 2020 introduced the #247 Challenge, which encouraged people to write and share a 24 word story starting ‘one day’.  This easy approach can be used with ‘my well-being’, or ‘I feel’.  First Story, who host National Writing Day, produced a video of people describing why they write.

Writers’ HQ offers a wealth of resources around writing, including free courses, and competitions.

Therapistaid.com provides a wide variety of well-being tools that can be used with children and young people, as well as by adults.  One example is the Gratitude Journal.

The NHS Recovery College has produced journaling guides around health and well-being.

Microsoft Office provides journaling templates to download.

Some free tools to write and note take online:

Finding inspiration with poetry

The Scottish Poetry Library undertakes projects incorporating poetry and well-being.  To find out more, visit the website. EIS members participated in Scottish Poetry Library led workshops throughout 2020-21, and kindly shared some of their work with us.

The Poetry Foundation posts a daily poem, as well as collections, and other poetry related resources.

Thinking creatively

Action for Happiness sets out their top ten notes to happy, healthy living.

The charity Relate offers guidance on promoting positive relationships at home, at work and avoiding becoming isolated.

The University of Pennsylvania Imagination Institute works on the measurement, growth, and improvement of imagination across all sectors of society. Publications and news cover a wide range of topics from thinking creatively to playing music.

The charity Mind offers simple relaxation tips, including a section on thinking creatively.  

The International Journal of Well-being explores well-being, and related topics such as creativity.