Category Archives: prompts

Prompts from cards

Often before a writing workshop, I’ll pull a Tarot card for each participant. Sometimes I’ll jot down some thoughts — usually in service of identifying a prompt but sometimes just to get the day’s flavor.

In my drafts folder, I found this old post of card responses. They read like a weird poem, but also constitute a fabulous list of writing prompts. Help yourself!

November 11 cards

They couldn’t pay her enough

How his cheapness showed

It was worth every penny

Love is blind, but so is Justice

Where is fairness?

The indecision threatened to pull her under. Riptide.

Only time alone in a cave would help

The blood along the wound clotted now

Scars as evidence

The knives clattered to the floor

Infinity is infinity one way or the other and also from the side

Don’t show me your weakness

I am offered perfection

I offer perfection

Let the coins fall out of your palm

The coins clatter to the floor

What’s in your bag of tricks?

As above so below

(These are not the cards).

Writing Prompts — 1/26

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These are fragments of other writers’ responses to prompts in my workshops. All used with permission.

Feel free to pick one and write for thirty minutes with the words as a starting place.

Things were popping off outside. OV

Grief is for amateurs. CC

She thought of herself as alluring. MT

I hate games and the wine was terrible. MR

before all the trouble started… MT

We were worried she might come undone. LT

Perhaps your scars define who you are. OV

I guess anything can be professionalized. CC

The emptiness of the streets surprised me. SH

I want my own climate zone. CC

Some ugly quilt fabrics hurt the eye, even hurt the soul. OV

… all the things you need to do to get out the door… MT

_____________ makes me feel normal again. I am not normal. SH

Everything fluctuates — markets, marriages. CC

… and then I learned baker’s math. LT

Writing prompts — 9/25

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Below are fragments that I jotted down while listening to others’ writing. Some are direct quotes, others not. Attribution by initials and used with permission.

To use as a writing prompt, select one and set a timer for 30 minutes. And then just write. Keep the pen moving.

Sometimes you can’t make it up. MT.

Occasionally, her mind flickers to that man. OV.

Mostly, we are stumbling. I am stumbling. LT.

The emptiness of the streets surprised me. SH.

To be on a journey is to live on scraps and to not feel at home. MR.

Will the haunting never end? EL.

Some things don’t wait for you. OV.

I’m wondering when the reckoning will come. LT.

Why does hair have to be so complicated? EL

There’s no good way to measure what this winter did to us. MT.

A photograph doesn’t lie, until it does. MT.

Everything feels like prophecy today. SH.

How do you imagine the backyards of your childhood? MR

She was just starting to get it. LT.

My dad once said to me… MR

We deprive ourselves by always looking for the best. SH.

Lately death had been nagging at her. EL.

There’s a delicious quality of observation. Not a voice of conclusion. CC of LT

She realized that she had nothing to say. She was, however, impeccably dressed. MT.

How do you reach anyone anymore? MT

She had learned the art of repression and it had helped her in emergencies. LT.

People do start in the middle. CC

In the northern climes, we lack the ability to be languid. CC.

Poem and Writing Prompt

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From the Atlantic

NOON

A poem for Sunday. By Li-Young Lee

a sheer curtain with a blue night seen through it — Photo: Brea Souders

APRIL 28, 2024

The tall curtains billow
with presences coming and going, impossible
to confirm.

Whispered voices congregate at noon.

Is there any word from the Lord?
Is there any word from the dead?
Is there any word from the dying?
Is there any word from the living?

The curtains rise and fall like wings.
Is the room about to lift off the earth?

Noon is crowded with voices.

Is there any word from the Lord?

You were born speaking the language of the dying:
I want. I need. Not enough. Give me.
When will you learn the language of the living?

Is there any word from the dead?

You haven’t changed at all, says my father.

When you were little,
each time you learned a new word
you couldn’t wait to repeat it to me.

Now you’re old
and you still can’t wait to talk to me.

Tell me, has your love of the world survived
your knowledge of the world?

You’ve changed so much, says my mother.

When you thought no one was listening,
you used to sing.

Canada, clutter, and prompts

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Passport. CHECK. Mouth guard and meds. CHECK (but didn’t have to carefully tuck them in carry on bag in case suitcase gets lost). Sewing, reading, and writing notebooks. CHECK (you’d think I’d have an elegant handmade etui to hand, but I don’t. I just stick needles and pins in whatever swatch of fabric is handy).

Our lovely house sitter will be taking GQ-level photos of Finn again no doubt. I can’t tell you how comforted I was to learn that she’d held a piece of cheese to her forehead for some of her darling shots from last trip.

I consolidated heaps of fabric and windexed here and there. The difference was relieving, noticeable. K said, “I’d live here,” which tells you something about his dry wit. What it perhaps doesn’t reveal as readily is how forbearing he is of my clutter.

Question to crafters: are works-in-progress demeaned by the label “clutter”?

Never mind that. What would be really hilarious if it weren’t so hypocritical is that I dare to ask him to please put his shoes away!

Traffic on 128 is bad. The trees are green. I will report back as we travel north. We may be in for some pretty foliage.

I’m excited to be going to Quebec City. Our older son went to McGill, so we’ve made many trips to Montreal in recent history, but I haven’t been to Quebec City since my French class traveled there in 1975.