Dear trying-to-write: let's do it for the love

Your weekly flashy fun writing prompt

Reading time: 2 mins | Prompt time: 10 mins

Dear trying-to-write,

You are not alone. My 24 mins of writing a day in 2024 is officially tanking badly (I blame it on holiday), and I am struggling to get back into the swing of things. I was even struggling to figure out what to do in today’s prompt. If I’m honest with myself, it is because I keep trying too hard.

I know it deep down. I know that I need to spend a week just with my notebook and my warm up prompts, and focus on having fun and playing around with new ideas rather than rewriting and editing stories I have (which is always way harder). You have to start with joy. You have to start with love. You have to make it feel good. Easy. Tempting.

You know what’s funny? I didn’t know any of that consciously until I started writing to you. Letter writing is a bit like that. It can draw things out of you, from the depths of your subconscious, and present themselves to you.

So today, I am going to do a writing prompt for myself, which in turn I hope will also help you. Perhaps together we can get ourselves out of the rut we are in! Are you up for it my fellow writing-champions?

There are two styles of writing that I find indulgent, easy, enjoyable to do:

1. Letter writing

2. The breathless sentence (more on this here)

I think it’s because the breathless sentence allows you to park all sense at the door. You can tap into a more poetic rhythm, which for me, comes directly from the heart. Letter writing has a clear objective - it is directed to someone, trying to tell them something, and it allows you to get creative with a character’s voice.