March 9, 2025 Writing Prompts for the Week

March 09, 2025

Happy Sunday! Here’s a question for you as we head into the upcoming week: How much of your time do you spend creating and how much time to do spend consuming?

If you’re like most people, you’re consuming waaaaay more than you are creating. Between watching tv, scrolling through social media, reading/watching the news, listening to podcasts…well, you get the picture.

But is that how you’d like it to be? If you’re like most writers, you’d love to be spending more time creating. So, how could you take back just a little bit of that consumption time and give it to creating?

Here’s a great place to start:

This Week’s Prompts*

  1. The knot in her back had doubled in size overnight.

  2. Howling winds had prevented her—and therefore her husband—from getting any sleep.

  3. Write a scene in which a child's invisible friend reveals itself to the child's parent.

  4. Sitting hand in front of the judge, they were just as afraid to let go as they were to hold on.

  5. "Snack time!" he yelled, much louder than was warranted.

  6. Pinkie Silverton was born for either super-stardom or death row.

  7. Mel's black eye was not a good look for a first date.

*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

What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan
This book splits timelines between young people growing up as the first generation after Chairman Mao’s disastrous policies changed the landscape of political, and those same people living in a modern and, in many ways, westernized China. It offers fascinating insight into both of those experiences, not to mention how different social classes interact and clash. Boy, I’m making it sound like a textbook; it’s much more interesting than that, I promise. 😊 

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

❝

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.

Ralph Ellison

😵‍💫 Well, “brain rot” sounds like something we should want to avoid already. But in case you’re not already sold, here are 12 easy habits to keep from over-consuming trivia, detritus, and general crud online.

🖼️ How about a break for something completely useless, but very fun? This website lets you create digital sand art—just click “Play Now” and use your mouse to drop colored sand to the bottom of the screen. (Click on the circle in the upper right corner to change sand color.)

🦥 If just the words “slow productivity” sound appealing (like a massage for your gray cells, don’t you think?), you’ll enjoy this interview with Cal Newport, coiner of the term. He digs into how to find a “deep work” state for writing and how to incorporate slow productivity into our creative practice.

Top (Published) First Line of the Week

For their final meal, the men had feasted on mutton and pork, and now they were sorry.

From The Riveter by Jack Wang

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

P.S.

I tried to get AI to tell give me a writing-themed riddle to share with you and, boy, were they terrible. That’s it, that’s all I have for my postscript today. AI serves up truly terrible riddles. Here’s mine: What’s faceless, fingerless, and can’t write a good riddle to save its non-sentient life? Guess. Just guess.

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