July 27, 2025 Writing Prompts for the Week

July 27, 2025

Happy Sunday! A friend of my recently built a small backyard barn as an office: A place where she could work without interruption from the people whom she loves very dearly and who are extremely distracting.

It made me think about what kind of space I’d design as my own workspace. How big? What would the windows view? What kinds of furniture? Even what state—or country?

And then I thought, too, that it might just be possible to infuse a few of the smaller, more modest elements into my current office…just until I’m ready for my seaside casita in Spain. Is there an opportunity for you to do the same?

While you’re thinking, how about some prompts?

This Week’s Prompts*

  1. Why settle for "small" when she could buy the large for less money?

  2. Write a scene in which someone finds something in their mailbox that should definitely not be there.

  3. Bulk trash day filled her with impending dread, seeing the remnants of people's past lives—objects they'd simply given up on—left out to sit for days in the rain before being junked.

  4. Dressing up as a ghost for the funeral sounded like a good idea at the time, but entering the church, she felt 150 pairs of eyes on her, raising the temperature under the sheet by at least 10 degrees.

  5. How could she not know? It was right there on the screen in front of her!

  6. It was ironic just how expensive feeling free turned out to be.

  7. For every car that turned right on Owens Ave., at least twice as many turned left.

*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

Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis
The reviews of this book are just chock-full of raves from literary luminaries and respected publications, so I thought I’d give it a try. The style of the stories (though, at just two lines, it might be a stretch to call some of them that) is certainly unique. I appreciated the distinct approach, but I don’t know if I was quite as wowed as I’d hoped to be. Read it and let me know what you think, will you?

Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon

❝

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

Madeleine L’Engle

💨 I think a fair amount about all of the books that have been written over the years that were beloved when they came out, but didn’t become ensuring masterpieces. I mean, thats got to be in the hundreds of thousands, right? Here’s a much shorter list: Ten great writers no one reads anymore.

🚦 I came across this topic of “microefficiencies”—looking to build efficiencies into our days in as many small ways as we can. At first blush, I like the sound of it…but this article wonders whether they might actually be a symptom instead of a solution.

🗓️ Consistency may be one of the keys to a prodigious writing output…but I haven’t quite mastered it (yet). That’s part of why I was so interested in this article about how and why this writer wrote 750 words a day for a month—and what happened because of it.

Top (Published) First Line of the Week

A prim girl stood still as a fencepost on Rhys Kinnick’s front porch.

From So Far Gone by Jess Walter

Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon

P.S.

Libraries are important to our society and are safe places for people from all walks of life. Now could be a great time to Consider contributing to (or working with) EveryLibrary.org.

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