This week – the prompt is W is for Watch.
So, we have watch as in a timepiece. What’s it’s significance? What’s it look like? Is it antique? Worth any money or does it have sentimental attachment? Why could somebody be looking at their watch? Is someone late, or early?
There’s watch as in to look at something, to observe it – TV, cinema, wildlife, people, a performance.
There’s watch as in a period of time during which a particular division of a ship’s crew is on duty, usually four hours; i.e. being on watch.
A watch was historically a person or group of people responsible for guarding property or public spaces, e.g. a watchman or a body of watchmen who patrolled and guarded the streets of a town. Probably now most familiar as in ‘nightwatchman’, which is now also a cricketing term, or in the phrase ‘Night Watch’ (familiar from Rembrandt’s painting, Terry Pratchett’s novel or the television series Game of Thrones.
A Watch is a collective name for nightingales.
Or you could use something like – watch out, watch your step, watch your lip, watch what you’re doing, watch where you’re going, watch it…
Or your character could be clockwatching, or waiting for a computer or app to do something which in certain circles is called ‘dotwatching’.
Plenty to go at. So, it’s the usual stuff – who, what, where, when, how and why?
Your piece doesn’t have to contain the word ‘watch’ – this is just a prompt for you. If you’re writing anything else, why not let us have a look at that?
Send your piece to louise.hulland@bbc.co.uk and we’ll review them when we next meet on the radio.