Writing Prompts

“This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it’s the family stories that are worth the storage.” —Ellen Goodman Make a list of family stories you want to tell. […]

“When you use the word should, you are arguing with reality.” —Tara Brach Tell me about a time you fought against reality . . . or a time you accepted it.

“I will study and get ready, and maybe the chance will come.” —Abraham Lincoln Tell me in detail about a time you prepared for an opportunity and what happened once you did.

“Digging up the dark world, the things you don’t remember, releases a lot of energy. Brings to light things that have been covered up for a long time and they snap and crackle. Usually we try to control what we remember. Control leads to dull writing. . . . “Lose control. Let the mute, the

“I think setting is, curiously, almost always underrated by the beginner or the amateur, and almost always of intense importance to the accomplished writer.  Why is that?  We only have space and time. I suppose that time happens of its own accord in a story: this happened and then that happened.  Whereas place must be

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in Nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” —Helen Keller Tell me about a time you went on a daring adventure—external

“Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It is what I was born for.” —Mary Oliver Tell me about something that delights you.

 “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese proverb Tell me about a time you fell down and got up again.

“Most commitments that keep me from my writing are masks that I put up to hide my fear and my failure to do what I need and want most to do. If my belief in my own work is strong, other commitments will adjust themselves. Human beings have free will. “If I could speak to

“Scars mark the places where life and sanity were threatened, ordeals endured, wounds opened and closed. They evoke a queasy awe in the best of us. We stare and look away, want to ask what happened but don’t dare broach the subject, as if these patches of mended flesh identified experience beyond the realm of

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs . . . ask yourself what makes you alive because what the world needs are people who have come alive.” —Rainier Maria Rilke What makes me come alive?

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The

“The page is no place, today, for what is pulling at my heart. Notebooks get misplaced; they lie around; they flip open in the wind. Who might see these pages, read them?  My heart is a secret place, especially now. The wide open plain of a page is a place with no boundaries, no etiquette, no conventions. How would

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right,

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” —Maya Angelou Tell me about a moment that took your breath away.