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- January 12, 2025 Writing Prompts for the Week
January 12, 2025 Writing Prompts for the Week
Happy Sunday! Have you been sticking with your writing since the new year kicked off, or has it been tricker to get back to it after the holidays than you expected? (Personally, I’m in the latter camp.)
Here’s a number I think you’ll find interesting, though:
142. With a full 353 days left of the year (I’m not trying to rush it, I promise!), if you want to have completed a 50,000 novel by the end of 2025, all you have to do is write 142 little words each day.
I know: It’s hard to get a sense of what that means, though. How many does that work out to be? Oh, just about as many words as you see in this intro.
It doesn’t have to be perfect to count, it just has to get done. You can do it.
This Week’s Prompts*
Chicken pox ran through that family like beef stew ran through their Uncle Art.
"Oh, you'd better think real careful before picking up that knife, mister. Real long and real careful."
"Eight ball, corner pocket," she said, in spite of pointing her cue toward my three.
Out across the lake, the light began glimmer as if it were shivering in the cold.
Describe the way your mother's father sneezed. (And if you never met him, how you imagine he'd sneeze.)
It hardly seems worth telling now, but it all began with Jorge losing a leg.
Open a book or a magazine near you and choose three words at random. Use those three words in a sentence and use that sentence to start your writing.
*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
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
Zauner, also known as indie rock singer Japanese Breakfast, writes about losing her mother and the complicated relationship they had before her death. Her insight into striving to forge her own path while (sometimes) trying to be the daughter her mother wanted her to be is worth the read alone, but her writing style also makes this grief, culture, growing up, and food memoir well worth consuming. (Pun fully intended.)
Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon
Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises.
Links We Like (And Think You Will, Too)
🎧 At minute 1:09 or so of episode #786 of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, Greg McKeown (author of Essentialism) talks about his system for organizing the day. Worth the listen.
📚 How would a TikTok ban affect BookTok—and the authors and readers who depend on it? Here’s Adweek’s take.
🎬 Writers of seven of 2024’s top films came together at the Hollywood Reporter’s Writers Roundtable and here’s what they had to say about their journeys, the craft, and what drives them to do the work they do.
Top (Published) First Line of the Week
In some empty hall, my brother is still singing.
From The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers
Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon
How many books are on your bedside table (or downloaded on your ereader) right now? |
P.S.
If writing floats your boat the way it floats mine, and you’ve been wondering if there’s a way you could do more of it, check out this training about copywriting. Marketing and advertising writing is a steadily growing field (yes, even in spite of AI) and it might just be right for you.
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