Writing Prompt of the Week

How it works

We meet for an hour, write for 10 minutes, and then, if you like, stay for conversation.

Step 1: We offer an image or video, and put it. up on the screen for 2 minutes while everyone generates a list of words: whatever pops into your head as you look at the prompt. Just a list of random words and short phrases: not joined-up writing, yet.

Step 2: We go around the Zoom room and collect one word or short phrase from each person to create a community list. In effect, we’re creating a collective imagination which we can all draw from as we choose.

Step 3: Someone volunteers to read the list aloud. This starts your imagination working, as it can’t help but make connections between the words, even if they don’t make sense. Especially if they don’t make sense! Nonsense delights and encourages the imagination.

Step 4: We all write for 10 minutes. You can draw from the two word lists—your personal list and the community list—as much or as little as you like. Maybe one word will kick you off and you won’t return to the lists at all, or maybe you’ll run your eyes across them again and again for inspiration.

There’s no way to do this wrong! Write long or short, fast or slow, prose or poetry, coherent or incoherent. There’s no need to try and write well, or figure out what you should write. Write without agenda. Be curious about what might hit the page. Allow your imagination to surprise you.

We like to describe this “write what you don’t know” writing as a dance between the rational mind and the imagination, with the imagination the partner leading the dance. Let your imagination whirl and twirl and swirl your rational mind until it gets dizzy, if that’s how it goes! Your rational mind’s job is simple: to follow. Not to try and take control, not to collapse in a heap and refuse to continue.

Sometimes you’ll be amazed at how good your writing is; other times you’ll think, ho-hum. Both are valuable. You’re training yourself to be free as you write, focusing on the process rather than the result. A) this makes writing more fun, which makes you more motivated to write; and B) you’re teaching your inner critic to stop barking at you, which helps make your writing fresh and original.

Step 5: We go into breakout rooms to read what we wrote aloud to an appreciative audience of 5 or 6 people. You are much less critical when you read your work aloud to listeners than when you read it silently on the page. You appreciate strong images and phrases and insights you didn’t even realize were there. You come to know your strengths, which enables you to build on them. Best of all, you get the support and genuine encouragement of a community of people who value your participation.

Step 6: We come back together, and on Saturday we create our Exquisite Storm. If you don’t know what that is, you’ll find last week’s in every Saturday newsletter, and over a year’s worth on our YouTube channel.

We look forward to writing with you!

Why it works

You may well be asking, how can you write anything good in 10 minutes?

Well, the first thing to say is that many people say they write better in 10 minutes than they could write in an hour or more. More importantly, the goal isn’t actually to write well—that’s just a side-effect. The goal is to stretch and strengthen your imaginative muscles, so that all your writing gains insight, verve, intrigue, and emotional power.

When you’re trying to write well, you’re focused on the result rather than the process, and you’re usually suffering from anxiety, fear of judgment, ambition, fear of failure. You’re also, very likely, trying to write like writing that you think was written well, which probably by definition was written by someone else. So no wonder if it doesn’t sound like you!

In our Prompt of the Week sessions, you learn how NOT to try to write well. How to take all that pressure off yourself. How to delight in the process of exploration and discovery in words. How to be curious rather than critical—because you can’t be both at the same time.

When you let your imagination lead your rational mind, you write material that you’ve never thought of before. You get new insights, new empathy and compassion, new awareness, new perspectives. You may take on different characters, different voices. There’s plenty to be curious about!

If you’re already working on a larger project, the random images and word lists will prompt you to enter scenes from new angles, and approach topics with a sense of story and emotional involvement. Intrigued by these new angles and approaches, you’ll be energized and motivated to continue.

The restriction of 10 minutes creates a paradoxical freedom. The stakes are low, so you can experiment. You can play. It feels good to play! And you’re developing a creative practice without effort and with minimal financial outlay, since all you need is pen and paper. Any psychologist will tell you that a creative practice is a major component of happiness.