Category: Prompts

  • Writing Personal Essays

    Make a list of issues and experiences, important and trivial, in your life right now.

    What frustrated you in the past month?

    What made you laugh or cry?

    What made you lose your temper?


    What was the worst thing that happened?


    The best?

    The most disturbing and weird?

    Write:  Choose one thing from your list and write about it.

    Write whatever comes to mind.

    Write what you would really like to say to the other people involved.

    Write what happened from your point of view.

    Prompt inspired from, “On Writing Personal Essays,” by Barbra Abercrombie, The Writer magazine, January 2003

    Barbara Abercrombie teaches creative writing in the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension, and a master class in memoir and personal essays via Zoom and Canvas.

    “We write the book we need to read and The Language of Loss is the book I needed when my husband died six years ago. It’s an anthology full of the very best poems and prose that I could find about losing the love of your life. These are the writers and poets who got me through my own grief. If you’re going through a loss right now, or know someone who is grieving, I hope this book will help.” —Barbara Abercrombie

    Marlene C

  • Healing. Prompt #565

    Write about a time you experienced a healing—physically, spiritually, or emotionally.

    Or, if you are in the process of pursuing healing . . . write about what you are doing.

    Or, what healing methods do you want to pursue?

    Let me count the ways . . .

    Aromatherapy, autogenic relaxation, art, biofeedback, deep breathing, exercise, Feldenkrais, guided imagery, hydrotherapy massage, meditation, music, prayer, progressive muscle relaxation, qi gong, tai chi, tapping, visualization, yoga.

    There are a number of resources listed in The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing, especially ideas about how to write about difficult events without adding trauma. Available at Amazon, print ($15) and ebook ($3.49).

    Marlene C

  • A place you have visited. Prompt #564

    Sit back. Get comfortable and relaxed in your chair. Think about a place you have visited.

    It doesn’t matter where. It could be the downtown area in your city. It could be the city where you were born. Could be a vacation.

    Take a few minutes to scroll through your mind and choose a place you have visited.

    Let your mind drift back to your visit or time you spent at this location.

    If you are working on fiction, how would one of your characters respond to the prompts below.

    Prompt #1: What is the first picture, or scene, that appears?

    Prompt #2:  I can still hear . . .

    Prompt #3: I can smell . . .

    Prompt #4: This place is important to me because . . .

    Prompt #5: I wish I could . . .

    Marlene C

  • Shoes . . . Prompt #363

    Write about shoes.

    Your shoes, a baby’s shoes, or a grandmother’s slippers.

    A pair of shoes hanging by the laces on a high wire.

    A favorite pair of hiking boots.

    Ballet shoes.

    Sandals worn on vacation.

    Shoes.

    Marlene C

  • Perseverance . . . Prompt #562

    Today’s prompt is inspired from the Perseverance Rover landing on Mars.

    What do you think about the Mars landing?

    Is this as impactful as man’s first walk on the moon?

    OR:

    Where were you on July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin landed on the moon?

    OR: Write about perseverance.

    About the parachute that helped land Perseverance:

    The parachute that helped NASA’s Perseverance rover land on Mars unfurled to reveal a seemingly random pattern of colors in video clips of the rover’s landing. NASA officials said it contained a hidden message written in binary computer code. The red and white pattern spelled out “Dare Mighty Things” in concentric rings. The saying is the Perseverance team’s motto, and it is also emblazoned on the walls of Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion. “The Verge”

    Marlene C

  • If you knew . . . Prompt #561

    If you knew then what you know now, what would you do differently?

    Marlene C

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  • Winter Thoughts . . . Prompt #560

    Winter.

    What is the best thing about winter? 

    What is your earliest winter memory?

    Or:

    Most memorable thing that happened in winter.

    Marlene C

  • Time Travel . . . Prompt #559

    Think about a relative or an ancestor who you know very little about. You can jot down names or how the person is related to you if you don’t know their names. Take about two minutes for this.

    Choose one person to focus on. Time travel to when that person lived.

    Write about that person in a “take me back” way . . . using location or place, date, other characters or people who lived then as details to learn about this person.

    You can make things up, imagine conversation, imagine circumstances.  

    There are no wrong answers. Have fun exploring the possibilities of “what if?”

    What if you lived during this time, what would you be doing? Where are you in this scene?

    The Free February 18, 2021 Writers Forum event features Kate Farrell, Waights Taylor, Jr., and Bev Scott chatting about how to research family history and shape your story.

    Writers Forum Details and Zoom URL

    Marlene C

  • Poem by Dawna Markova . . . Prompt #558

     I Will Not Die an Unlived Life by Dawna Markova

    I will not die an unlived life.
    I will not live in fear
    of falling or catching fire.
    I choose to inhabit my days,
    to allow my living to open me,
    to make me less afraid,
    more accessible:
    to loosen my heart
    until it becomes a wing,
    a torch, a promise.
    I choose to risk my significance,
    to live so that which came to me as seed
    goes to the next as blossom,
    and that which came to me as blossom,
    goes on as fruit.

    Prompt: You can write on the mood or the theme of the poem. Or use a line or a word as a springboard for your writing.

    Dawna Markova followed her precious grandmother’s footsteps to become a midwife, but rather than babies, she helps birth possibilities within and between people. 

    She has lived many incarnations in the past seven decades as an author, teacher, psychotherapist, researcher, executive advisor, and organizational fairy godmother.

    One of the creators of the best-selling Random Acts of Kindness series, Dawna is the author of many other inspirational books, including: Living A Loved Life: Awakening Wisdom Through Stories of Inspiration, Challenge and Possibility; I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion; Reconcilable Differences: Connecting In a Disconnected World; Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking With People Who Think Differently; A Spot of Grace: Remarkable Stories of How You DO Make a Difference.

    Reprinted with Dawna’s permission.

    Marlene C

  • Explore Characters . . . Prompt #557

    Create a character, or develop a character.

    ~ The character could be you . . . when you were younger, or looking ahead, you in the future.

    ~ Someone you know, dead or alive.

    ~ A fictional character you created.

    Give your character a name: 

    Younger Me.

    Older Me.

    Someone you know.

    Your fictional character.

    Woman in 1940s.

    Man on a Mission.

    Person in a foreign country.

    Get up and walk around your space, looking at things, touching things, as if you were that character. Look through the eyes of the character you are writing about. Say, or think, the name of your character as you walk around.

    Walk in your character’s shoes.

    Spend 3-5 minutes on this.

    When you return to your chair, respond to the prompt from your character’s point of view.

    Use one of these prompts as a springboard to write about a character of your choice.

    What did your character see that interested them?

    What does your character want to know more about?

    Write from your character’s point of view:

    I think . . .

    I suppose . . . I remember

    Thank you to B. Lynn Goodwin for the inspiration for this prompt.

    Marlene C

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