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- August 3, 2025 Writing Prompts for the Week
August 3, 2025 Writing Prompts for the Week
Happy Sunday! My windows are open—at last! It’s cooled down a bit and I can get some fresh air wafting through this house.
I’m noticing, though, that it’s not just fresh air I’m craving; it’s fresh everything. Suddenly my routines feel too routine, my daily activities too daily.
So, today, for a start, I’m going to drive to a town I’ve never visited before and find somewhere new to work. A new library, coffee shop, even park. Let’s take the time to explore the fresh and new while we still have it. What do you say?
And, speaking of fresh, here are seven fresh prompts for you:
This Week’s Prompts*
Write a scene that begins with a fire alarm in an office building.
Slowly but surely, his vision was narrowing to a tiny circle of light within a great expanse of darkness.
Dust bit at Raye's nostrils and caked his lips.
Each day, Leander watched these children take their seats in his rearview mirror; some confident and carefree and others braced for an impending impact.
"For my tenth birthday, my father sent me a card that said, 'Keep on Truckin'' with a busty woman in short shorts holding a cake."
Each time Miss Carey said, "From your lips to God's ears," Presh imagined a long line of people playing telephone, irrevocably and inevitably mangling every prayer.
If there was a "limit," he was pushing her toward it at breakneck speed.
*How to Use These Prompts: The italicized prompts let you create your writing entirely from scratch; the non-italicized prompts are intended as your first line and jumping off point. But, at the same time, there are no rules. Write on!
Book(s) We’re Reading This Week
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
A book connects an old man approaching the end of a long life and a fatherless young girl trying to make sense of the world. Quite why and how isn’t clear until well into the book, but the stories that leads you there are compelling and the final resolution is satisfying. Turns out the narrative arc of the human life is complicated.
Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon
We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.
Links We Like (And Think You Will, Too)
⏳ I’m always curious about any writer’s schedule and habits. In this article, this writer has laid out his “productivity plan.” The term feels a little clinical, but let’s see what we can learn.
4️⃣ Okay, I’m going down a rabbit hole now. Here’s another writer who shares his plan and says it’s let him “quadruple his output.” We shall see…
💤 Let’s take a hard turn from those previous two and explore taking it easy. Could rest, in fact, even been an act of resistance? Here’s an article digging into it.
Top (Published) First Line of the Week
The hardest thing in the world is to live only once.
From The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon
How do you prefer to learn something? |
P.S.
Interested in making a living as a writer? Here’s a mini course about how to land your very first copywriting client, even if you don’t have any previous experience.
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