My next So Now What writing workshop is June 14th from 10:00-3:00 MST. To register, click here! (more info below)

You want to learn how to write but you don’t know where to begin.

You’ve heard this phrase: writing prompt and it’s got your attention. But what is a good writing prompt? Here’s some help for you. Please enjoy my new Writing Prompt for you at the end, inspired by this essay!

The writer in me rebels against even an inkling of the phrase writing prompt. I can smell it a mile away, and I run for the hills. In my mind, I sound like a bratty pre-teen— Don’t tell me what to write. I don’t need your woke-ish inspirational launchpad to find what it is that I want to say. You can take your ‘it was a dark and stormy night’ and shove it where the sun don’t shine (get it–haha). I’ve got my pen and my notebook and I am safe from the big bad world with my little picnic basket of words, frolicking through the woods.

Isn’t everyone who loves to write like this? A child with butterflies in her stomach, faking sick so she can stay at home and write in her journal? Where there are no playground politics or mean girls or boys who pull your pigtails? Where there is only a word world of possibility…?

The answer is no. And that’s a very very good thing.

Otherwise, obsessed word wanderers everywhere would be sitting in bed with the covers up to their chin, writing all day. Believe me, it’s not healthy. It took me decades to learn that getting fresh air and sunshine is its own kind of writing prompt. And its own kind of writing.

But most people who want to write aren’t obsessed. They’re scared and scarred. Most people who want to write don’t know how to find the fresh air and sunshine in the written word. And sometimes, vice the verse. Most people need some help finding their words and that’s because somewhere along the line someone told them to speak when spoken to, or that they have nothing interesting to say even if they tried.

And they took their words and went home, and they learned that two plus two always equals four. It was for that reason that I became a creative writing teacher, rebel writer and all.

We need our teachers and their writing prompts. In fact, the healthiest kind of writing makes all kinds of room for being taught, especially by a kind guide, and especially by someone who has some pretty good prompts up her sleeves. I have shed my run-for-the-hills mentality in this regard. But let’s be perfectly clear: there are good writing prompts. And there are not-so-good writing prompts.

A good writing prompt prompts a lot more than words. It prompts truth.

What we’re really looking for in our writing is truth. Even if it’s fiction. It’s all, in the end, truth. Even if the words sprout wings on a woman and she flies out the window into a parallel universe. There is as much truth in fiction as there is in non-fiction, when it’s all distilled. Truth is truth is truth.

Finding your truth, however, can be blood sport.

There are thousands of haunted thoughts that tell a person that their truth is too daunting, or inconvenient, or embarrassing, or just plain wrong. And years of living on this heartbreaking planet have misconstrued the pursuit of finding the words for your truth as one that should look smart, fancy, wise. All of that is a lie.

Truth is usually quite plain. A good writer knows this in the purest way, but if you ask that writer to explain it, you’ll likely get a very long, confusing, answer. Or no answer at all. A good writing teacher knows that the pursuit of truth using the written word is one that for most people needs to be broken down into small measures. Sometimes miniscule. That’s how corrosive the mind can be when it comes to allowing truth to flow.

But I’m stuck.

The phrase a writing teacher hears over and over again is this: “I’m stuck.”

As much as that phrase saddens me, it’s also music to my ears because over and over at my Haven Writing Retreats and Workshops I’ve seen how a good writing prompt moves people out of their stuckness. And not because the prompt is clever or cunning or difficult. But because a good writing prompt shows people how to let it give itself to them.

Huh?

I’ll spin it like this.

Dirty secret: all a good creative writing teacher really does is to help people see what they already know.

Prompt by prompt. And yes, craft-byte by craft-byte. The truth is never that far off. It’s just a matter of getting the writer out of the way so that truth can flow. And that is the power of a good writing prompt.

It’s like a kick ass babysitter. The kind that lets you eat dessert before dinner. Notice that when it’s all said and done…you’re still eating dinner. Occupy the mind—the voice that tells you that you’re stuck. That you’re not creative. That someone else already did it better than you ever could. Occupy the mind with a delicious dessert-first writing prompt…and before you know it…you’re eating your broccoli. Truth broccoli. And you’re even a member of the clean plate truth club. Shhhh. Don’t tell anyone. There are people out there making a living teaching people truth in the prestidigitation of writing prompts. I might be one of them.

But beware. A good writing prompt, just like a good creative writing teacher, will not let you get stuck in prompt worship. Or in teacher worship, for that matter. An effective writing prompt led by an effective writing teacher is designed to allow the student’s knowing to flow. It’s the knowing that begets more knowing, not the prompt. Nor the teacher. And that means that the writing prompt needs to render the mind a-wobble, knocked off its usual course. A good writing prompt should be delivered without a lot of explaining. And shouldn’t court too many raised hands. I like to say, “The fourth grader in you knows exactly how to do this.”

A good writing prompt gets you outside of good and bad, right and wrong, grade-at-the-end, and the big one: PERFECTION. And invites you to play!

It’s like teaching someone to ride a bike. Holding them securely as they get a feel for it and then letting go so that they forget that they were scared to learn how to ride a bike just moments ago. A good writing prompt needs a bit of velocity. Trajectory. Shiny handlebars.

And here’s another secret. It’s not really about the words at all. It’s about occupying the person’s mind with these writing prompts so that the truth can find its way into them, and out of them. I’ll say it again because I can’t say it enough, and for some reason it’s a surprise to so many people attempting to write. What we’re looking for in our writing is truth, no matter what the genre.

So if you want to write, don’t think about writing. Think about finding the words that allow what you already know. What you knew as a child. Think about having a ribald date with your intuition.

And if you’re a rebel like I am and cringe at the phrase writing prompts…consider the probability that fear might be at the root of that aversion. We rebel against those words because we don’t want anybody telling us how to think, and that’s likely because the place where we go mentally and emotionally when we do this thing called writing, is the place we have deemed most safe in our lives. Where no one can tell us that we’re wrong or bad. Where our minds can do what they want.

The rebel writer doesn’t think about what people will say once the words are on the page. She only knows she has to write them. It’s a matter of life or death. (No hyperbole.) Sometimes she decides that what she’s written has a place in the world, and she risks bleeding out by putting her words before others. That’s the part that readers don’t understand. Her words are not ultimately for them. They are for her.

The good teacher understands the rebel writer and the stuck writer and the prompt-worshiping writer and the teacher-worshipping writer. Because a good teacher understands fear. Old wounds. Longing.

A good teacher doesn’t give her student an hour to go sit under a tree and write about the wind. Too much comes in on the wind in an hour. A good teacher gives you something to occupy your mind so that the wind can write itself.

So…it’s fair to say that I don’t teach writing. I teach longing. And I teach slake. How? By helping people find their truth, using the written word, and using carefully designed writing prompts in carefully designed workshop settings. But a good writing prompt should stand on its own. That’s it. There are no ten easy steps to learn how to write a memoir, or how to write a novel, or how to write in general. There is no recipe. And anyone who says there is: run for the hills.

Here’s a writing prompt for you:

Two plus two equals five

Go wherever your mind takes you for 7 min. Use a pen on paper. 

***Here’s more for you if you need it: Write a scene that uses this line somewhere in it. Write for at least 20 minutes but only in one sitting. You can return to it later and edit it, add to it, develop it…as long as you write a 1st draft with a landing place in those first 20 minutes.

Have fun!

Laura

Here are some online writing opportunities for you!

Friday So Now What Journal Writing practice:

My weekly gift to you is one hour of guided journal writing to help you write your way through this pandemic. All of us are asking this question right now:  So Now What?

Inspired by my new novel, “Willa’s Grove,” I will lead you through the So Now What Journal Writing practice. Come once, learn it, do it solo. Come every week. Join family and friends. I’m here to help.

Here’s the registration link

So many people who have been doing the So Now What journaling, wanted more. So I created the:

So Now What Workshop (and the So Now What community)

To help us through this time of our lives, I’m leading So Now What writing workshops. Join me May 9th for a deep dive into what you want to let go of, and what you want to create going forward in your life. Each of the prompts is inspired by my new novel, “Willa’s Grove,” or my top-ranked Haven Writing Retreats. You do NOT have to be a writer to come! If you ARE a writer, you will find craft instruction that can be applied to any writing project. You’ll also be invited into the So Now What community where we continue to support one another. I’m watching this workshop hold people together right now, and provide the deep relief that comes when we give ourselves the chance to be in our truth in a powerful way. Please give yourself this gift. I’m only offering it during this time of pandemic. I want to help.

My next one is June 14th from 10:00-3:00 MST. To register, click here!