Writing Workshop Prompts
If you try any of these prompts, drop your responses in the comments! Looking forward to it !
jan18
Weekend Writers Workshop: Show Don’t Tell
Exercise 1: Warmup!
6 word story
Exercise 2: Music, instrumentals specifically, has a way of showing and not telling! Use these 2 songs to respond to these to prompts They provide different feelings and pacing. Use that to your advantage!
Song: Pelos by Misrili Ahmet
https://open.spotify.com/track/28g2DsAiBRhFmF5nyonBWa?si=KZJR5FerS5CNIPlv0PFHEw
Prompt: “the Clock Strikes 12…” The percussion of this song is fast pace! can you keep up? What’s happening as the clock strikes 12?
Song:
Prompt: Knives! Knives are a special tool in that it can be used both as a weapon and a tool to potentially cut an apple in half to share. whether it be to cook, to kill, to protect, or to cut, write about Knives! write in your own style be a poem or short story.
feb15
Weekend Writers Workshop: Personification.
exercise 1:
read cloud and cactus from everythingnmo.com
topic: an unlikely love story:
group write. pass a piece of paper. write a love story together. line for line or paragraph for paragraph.
each person choose an object:
for example: light & shadow, cactus & cloud
chair & floor.
hat & flower.
use your personalized writing styles to write these. be it poetry, short story, historical political text etc. bring your object and the other persons object to life using personification, metaphors, similies etc.
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exercise 2.
write a letter to your future self.
update on where you are right now? advice for future you? affirmations? encouragement? etc.
March
exercise 1
the box: You have just received a box, using your 5 or more senses tell a story or write a poem that describes the experience of receiving and opening the box and discovering it's contents. Remember to show and not tell
example:
the freshly cut grass wafts in the air,
morning coffee in hand
the sun kissing my skin
but also reflecting the dew on the flowers in the garden
i look down at my feet
in two different socks
and there’s a box.
delivered to me from Pandora
etched on it is different types of flora
and faces and lace
i wait, take a sip of the cinnamon tasting coffee that was made w love
i know that opening this box
will change my fate.
exercise 2
saving time: write a short story or poem about "saving time." Get creative! have fun!
example:
so i wait.
the seconds fade into thick minutes
lifting off the page is hours
being added to my age
i look up at my numbers decreasing
and force a smile
cause her smile flashes in my head
i’m doing this for her i said
aloud
but the loud ego voice inside told me it was for him instead
that we always wanted to be a hero
even if it brought my time to zero
a martyr
i craved a great ending
cause i was never a self starter
but i never liked it when things ended
the bank teller interrupted my thoughts
“sir, to confirm, you’re sending this amount of 42 years, 10 months, 7 weeks, 8 days, 5 hours 29 minutes and 2 seconds to a Ms. Time?”
yes i reply
“great. but you know that if you do this, you die”
yes i say with a sigh,
as long as she gets another try.”
he then asks me to to sign the rest of my life away
to Miss Time
who had been my world and my space
she was always the perfect time and place for me
she only had a few days left
she had been hit by a theft
April The Art of Noticing
exercise 1: Take a moment to notice your surroundings and write about what you see. you can write it plainly or poetically.
The sunrise sat at the table with her pen and pondered "what does it mean to notice? To pay attention? To slow down?"
South Florida's fast pace a race
a marathon of thought flurry in fast forward toward
no real destination
the trees are never in a rush to grow. Stand tall rooted best suited for slow paced play,
dancing arm and arm with the wind while being kissed by the sun:
I think the trees see all or atleast they see me.
example 2
standing on the tracks, my train of thought is released from my grasps, there are no palm trees on this open palm, just miles of sand from my thumb to my pinky and ocean of brown skin surrounds my island. They say "I know you like the back of my hand'
example 3
the wind felt like kisses from heaven ,
lips made of air,
crisps and moist
planted on my cheek,
my clothes flutter and speak poetry
back at the wind that felt like kisses from heaven
May
The Art of Noticing 2
Exercise 1: Notice the things in your current environment. Use all your senses!
exercise 2: Paint a Picture what are some things you notice in this painting?
exercise 3: Finding
Write about the experience of finding. Feel free to incorporate losing in it too.
example:
finding
myself falling
the wind hugging me
my wins above me
my sins reaching for me
ready to cradle my soul
i’m falling
finding myself falling
it’s dark
and i’m lost
and
on a losing streak
when i was once at my peak
i’m falling.
i keep saying ill go look
but then find myself stalling
then i forget.
struggling to forgive myself
for not calling
finding
fireworks in my mind
a shame i didn’t notice it before
right in front of me
celebrate the lost
and celebrate the finding
don’t focus on rewinding
divine timing
i’ve never been lost
just early.
June
prompt for today’s workshop. for Diaspora Marketplace
Home and Identity: Diaspora refers to the dispersion or scattering of a group of people from their original homeland to multiple places around the world.
write about what “home” is like for you using the senses. what does it smell, sound, taste, feel, and look like. and not limited to the five senses. It can be imaginative or based on real events in your lives.
With that in mind whether home is somewhere else or "here" the next prompt can be about identity. how did the culmination of a past home and a new home and everything in between create the identity they embody currently.
July
a black love story 
- observation - The Art of notice, the Art of presence. Perceive the world inside and outside of you. write them down.
- Affirmations -Honey and Tea Affirmations - Lyric Dixon. Write a poem, short journal, list of affirmations for yourself.
- World - take affirmations and create a character. Then in this world, create a challenge for to encounter and how they overcome the challenge. Describe the world using the same observation practice.
August
all worked out
It All Worked Out
https://open.spotify.com/track/2TrquaQwzBdcP8AHal7Nai?si=fYrSPK-KQ2aFSrp7X_F0jg
1. free write
2. It all worked out ! - write about “working out” in a way that makes sense to you. physically spiritually mentally.
3. the world around you (the art of noticing) use your senses to identify the world, show don’t tell.
what do you hope to get out of this
- how to make writing more “complex”
metaphors, and literary devices,
- how to finish a story
know the end
interview you characters (align questions with the end)
thing of a problem then think of think of somethin way worse.
importance of journaling (working out complex math problems.)
4. choose one of these emotions: insecure curious angry vulnerable
and how did you get to the other side of those feelings. create a world based in reality or fiction and invite us in.
September
love and fear
- 10 words
use the 10 words to write a poem, story or journal entry.
headache
run
breathe
fire
paper
trees
intentional
alignment
grieve
green
these were chosen in class, feel free to choose your own. just the first 10 words to come to mind. don’t overthink it.
- define love and fear.
- create a short story or poem or journal entry about your relationship to love and fear and how they show up in your life.
October - Bigger on the Inside
- Haikus for Breakfast wordpool: in addition to our Words of the day: Resonance and Metanoia, choose 8 words based on how your current thoughts feelings environments etc: here’s what the class chose today:
grateful hopeful excited energized metanoia resonance bright healthy attractive rich
Metanoia comes from the Greek metanoein, meaning “to change one’s mind” or “to think differently afterward.” But in deeper use — especially in philosophy, spirituality, and art — it means a transformative change of heart, a spiritual conversion, or a fundamental shift in one’s way of being.
Resonance is the quality of something that evokes emotion, meaning, or connection beyond its surface — like when a sound, image, or idea lingers and vibrates within you.
1b: Haikus are 3 line poems, the first line must have 5 syllables, the second line 7 syllables and the final line 5 syllables. Japanese style poetry that captures fleeting moments in nature or emotion. small snapshots of the soul.
using words from our word pool come up w 3 Haikus. if possible show transformation throughout the pieces.
2. The Telescope: point the telescope into a space in your mind. all of your thoughts emotions and experiences are stars and planets. Write a Haiku about what you’re pointing at.
3. TARDIS: time and relative dimension in space. Dr Who a telephone booth that can travel to anywhere and or anytime.
you just walked in the TARDIS. you notice that it’s much bigger on the inside. where do you travel to ? who do you see? do you talk to a younger version of yourself ?
this is a test. students respond here