Back to the Page: Prompts to Write Toward Yourself

There's still time to write this summer

Dear Reader,

I hate to break this to you, but summer (vacation) is almost over.

So, consider this the permission you need to pick up a pen and engage in some deep thinking and perhaps some feeling before the lazy days of summer disappear.

Which is what I am (sorta) doing lately. I’m writing a textbook and finishing up Marigolds in May. But I digress…

With summer nearly over (as my work email recently reminded me), I am trying my best to enjoy and work on my writing projects before having to pause them and re-focus on my teaching duties.

Those writers in the education field view those “free” summer weeks as writing time. But, as always, life gets in the way. For example, I’ve worked on car repairs, writing a free textbook for my students, taking a training course on design, and some committee work. And, of course, this was after finishing the summer semester the second week of July.

So, if you’re wanting to do some writing and reflecting, I’ve put together 10 writing prompts you can use to help you do some scribbling.

1. Write about the moment everything changed—but only from the outside.
   What did the room look like? What could be heard? What changed that no one else could see? Lean into the five senses to tell the story. Use a sense you don’t often use in your writing. What does change smell like?

2. Begin with the line: “This is not the story I meant to tell…”
   Let what you meant to write unravel. Tell it! Be brave! Then follow where the unexpected takes you. Don’t place any restrictions on what you are writing. Write for the love and curiosity of writing.

3. Describe a place that no longer exists.
   A childhood home, a store, a relationship, a version of yourself—what remains in its absence? What was it replaced with? I recently did this with a poem and discovered how the change marked time much like a clock.

4. Write a letter you’ll never send.
   You choose the recipient—your younger self, someone gone, someone who needs to hear the truth. Remember, you won’t be sending this one. Let honesty guide you. Pour onto the page and you will feel so much lighter.

5. Invent a ritual you need right now.
   Make it real on the page—details, purpose, timing—and show us who you are in what you choose to create. I did this with my morning ritual. The coffee outside, the reading, the writing — it was all that I needed to start my day. Even my writing can, sometimes, come with a dance break. This is your opportunity to determine what you need and how to achieve it.

6. Recall a time when you were wrong—and grateful for it.
   Explore the discomfort, the lesson, and the light that followed. The roads not taken, or closed, are the stories of who you are now. Can you imagine what would have happened if certain situations had turned out? I’d be miserable. And so I am so thankful. What moments were like that for you?

7. Use a single object as an emotional anchor.
   A necklace, a meal, a tree, a photograph—write everything it carries, everything it’s seen, and everything it won’t say aloud. Consider these objects artifacts of a life. Just like how the pyramids or etching in prominent stone features tell us about a people's hopes, dreams, joys, devastation — so too do these objects.

8. Tell a story about joy—and make it hard-earned.
   Joy deserves context. Where did it come from? What did it cost? Who noticed it? I’ve written about joy and how to track it. What about that small joy on a hard day? What made that moment so joyous and worthy of remembering? Joy is fleeting but the story of joy builds a monument for it.

9. Trace your legacy—not through accomplishments, but through small kindnesses.
   What do you hope stays behind, uncredited but felt? When you leave this planet, what will you leave behind? What do you hope stays that makes people remember who you were? How will the memory of you continue for the people you will leave behind.

10. Write the scene that keeps returning to you.
    The one you avoid, the one that visits in dreams, the one that won’t stay buried. Please give it a name. Let it speak. Or, if there is a scene in a book, movie, or TV show that still haunts you, rewrite it! I know that there is an entire season of How I Met Your Mother that I’ve been itching to redo.

I hope you enjoy these prompts! I hope they spark ideas, action, or even create a space to breathe and enjoy a cup of coffee. Let me know how they turn out, or figure you’re hoping to try one out. I’d love to know what bubbled to the surface for you.

Here's to the discovery,

—Icess