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- November 2, 2025 Writing Prompts for the Week
November 2, 2025 Writing Prompts for the Week
Happy Sunday! In most of the US, we got an extra hour back this morning. (Or are about to, depending on when you read this.) And, yes, I know what it’s a bit of a time shell game since we also lose that hour in the spring.
But let’s, for just a moment, pretend that we’re being gifted an extra hour of life to do with whatever we like. Not just “free time” but truly FREE time.
How are you going to spend this extra hour of existence? What is your soul craving most right now? Here’s an idea: Take that extra hour and gift it to yourself.
And then, how about some writing prompts?
This Week’s Prompts*
What you can't tell, watching from home, is just how hot the lights on a quiz show set get.
"Oh, no, no, no," she whispered, "Too many shades of off-white."
Lester's right leg was two inches shorter than his right, which led to lifelong hip pain balanced with a cowboy-like swagger.
Write a scene in which the characters are spending a night in a place people wouldn't normally sleep.
Her name was Anne Marie but, in grade four, we'd begun calling her "Badger."
A dozen tiny horrors: That was how he viewed each hour of the day ahead of him.
"Gargling," Gib finally offered, setting down his newspaper, "The sound of gargling wouldn't be a scary ghost sound."
*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
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
The protagonist of this book is a novelist and mother who’s struggling to make ends meet and struggling even more to craft a sellable second novel. When she starts working with a Hollywood producer to create a series about a mixed race family, she finds herself at odds with her racial identity, her identity as an artist, and the choices that have lead to her daily adult life. It’s a heavy topic but an enjoyable read, even as you feel the claustrophobia of her small mistakes and missteps start to compound.
Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon
Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.
Links We Like (And Think You Will, Too)
🎧 It seems like Susan Orlean has been publishing books for most of my adult life, so it was a pleasure to listen to this podcast episode where she digs into how she goes about creating her work.
🎶 Speaking of podcasts, did you know that, of all people, musician Dua Lipa has a books podcast and that it’s quite good? Well, you do now. Check it out.
🎤 And why not round things out with another podcast? The host of The Writer Files podcast is, unfortunately, frustratingly poor at interviewing but the impressive and deeply interesting writer guests he lands more than make up for it.
Top (Published) First Line of the Week
We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.
From A Death in the Family by James Agee
Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon
P.S.
Looking for a way to write for a living—and still get paid well? Check out this training about copywriting. If it was good enough for F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, and Joseph Heller, it might just be good enough for you, too. 😉
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