Many writing practitioners, when they sit down to write, freeze. “I don’t know what to write about,” they say, while holding the pen in a death grip somewhere down near the nib. Truth is, each of us has so much we want to write about that we can become paralyzed by infinite choice. The brain simply can’t make up its mind so it launches into what it does best: measuring, judging, calculating. Thinking. The worst possible thing for writing practice.
This is why I created writing prompts for my writing practice groups, in my books and why I use them myself. Think of a writing prompt as music that invites you to dance, or maybe starting blocks to push off for a lap around the track. Prompts invite images, images invite writing. For example: write about a summer garden; in the backseat of a taxi; January moon. Did you get a mind picture when you read those phrases? That’s where you begin. Simply climb aboard any image that appears, grab your notebook, or open up a blank screen and hang on for the ride. No matter what the prompt is, what you want to write about will emerge on the page. Story seedlings, poetic uprisings, character visitations – things that are deep inside are brought to the surface by the focus and energy and freewheeling fearlessness of writing practice.
When you write from prompts, feel free to change the tense, or the point of view. If the prompt uses “you,” this doesn’t mean you have to write about yourself. Change the pronoun to “he” or “she” or use a character’s name. Use the writing prompts to write from a character’s point of view; create a fragment or work on a scene for a longer piece. Write anything you want.
Writing prompts are expressed in several ways – as sentence stems, quotes, directives, or simply phrases or words.
Prompts aren’t themes for compositions or essays. They’re not topics you must stay with, as in “stick to the topic.” The idea is not to think about what the prompts mean or how to interpret them. Just start writing. The freedom to let your writing go down any open road is one of the delights of writing to suggested topics.
An important note: Don’t reject the topic out of hand and don’t consider what you’re going to write about before you begin. Above all: Don’t wait for the “right” prompt. They’re all right if you trust the process and surrender to the page.
Good Writing!
