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Get started: Accept the challenge to use
prompts for 30 days in a row. Gather
your writing group for a special session
to co-create a collection of silly and seri-
ous prompts. Buy a book of prompts so you have a
year’s worth at your fingertips. Open a favorite mag-
azine, novel, or volume of poetry, and use the first
phrase you read as your prompt for the day. What
will you write next?Hope Lyda is a writing coach, spiritual director, and author
whose books have sold more than 1 million copies. Her new
book of prompts is My Unedited Writing Year: 365 Invitations
to Free Your Creativity and the Writer Within. Visit her at
mywritedirection.com.STUMBLE
ONTO A
MEDITATION
PRACTICE.
Your response to a prompt is
not tethered or obligated to
anything that happens before
or after it, eliminating the bur-
den to weave a story thread
or lay a foundation for future
arguments. Take a breath.
Engage with the topic and
your heart response in the
moment. Savor a gentle
scooch toward center.
This developed ability to be
present to the page and to the
still, small voice will serve all
of your work. All of your life.Describe the hands of a
loved one.RECEIVE PERMISSION TO
ENTER THE PAGE JUST AS
YOU ARE.
The invitation list to the party
on the page is all-inclusive.
There’s no need to prequalify,
prove your platform, or gussy
up in order to hunker down
and respond to a prompt.
Roll out of bed and reach
for a fave rollerball pen. Go
for a morning jog and then
grab your daily journal. Clear
your head of day-job minutia
with a timed writing exercisebefore you leave the parking
lot and drive home. However
you fit writing into your life,
the page with a prompt
offers a come-as-you-are
sanctuary.Using scents and sounds as
your cues, write about a
place where you once lived.CHARM AND DISARM
YOUR INNER CRITIC.
A simple prompt is an ideal excuse to send your hovering
task-master on a break. Give your inner critic a name and
something to do: “Helga, you work so hard. Some might
even call you relentless. This one itty, bitty writing exercise is
beneath your pay grade. Make yourself a triple-decker BLT
and catch up on Netflix.”
Do this every day before your prompt practice. Soon you
will arrange breaks from your inner critic with ease and with-
out separation anxiety.Name your inner critic and write a character profile on them.PLAY WITH
POSSIBILITY.
Writers understand do-overs better than
anyone. We call them drafts. Take a
recess from rules. Rewrite a scene of
missed opportunity. Rescript a conver-
sation that went sideways. Revisit a
middle school exercise that haunts you.
Why not?What did you do over the holiday vaca-
tion? (Permission granted to lie about
fire-walking for this fire starter!)5
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