Writing prompts can be great (and we’ve certainly shared many of them with you here). They can help when your stuck and you simply need a reason to sting words together or get your butt back in the writing chair. But they don’t typically help you start or finish a writing project. The only way to do this is, as Achebe reminds us, is to keep at it.

Over the past few years, we have thought a lot about how to help writers finish their projects and then how to revise those early drafts on their own. We are working on more significant guidance on this path, but in the meantime we’ll be posting exercises (here and on our instagram page) to help you keep at it. These will not be writing prompts, but rather invitations to play with your current project. Our hope is that they will help you hone, rethink, or even salvage bits of your work in progress (be it an essay, book, or article).

Ideally, some of these exercises will become part of your toolkit, useful things to pull out when you find yourself in need of ways to keep at it. If all goes well, it will be like a stern little editor is sitting on your shoulder urging you to make that section better, or to rethink this paragraph, and I won't actually have to come to your house. 

It’s a ripped from the headlines sort of morning…

There are two teenagers in my house with what appears to be strep throat…and last night I started sneezing and haven’t stopped. Pure joy. So, forgive me if this week’s writing prompt is a bit of a cheat.

We’ve urged you to look to the news for inspiration before, but reading yesterday’s paper I was reminded how fantastically inspiring the real world is. Here are five stories from the New York Times that are far better than any writing prompt I could offer today:

1. A love affair ignited by low-carbon energy leads to political scandal: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/us/politics/oregon-governor-john-kitzhaber-and-fiancee-cylvia-hayes-walked-tangled-path-to-exit.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
2. A remote South Korean province’s $375 million experiment with Formula One racing failed, but it left behind the seeds of a car-racing culture. Oh, and a giant racetrack: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/asia/a-korean-auto-racing-debacle-but-hope-around-the-bend.html?ref=world
3. The oldest person in Europe attributes her longevity to “Raw Eggs and No Husband Since ’38.”: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/world/raw-eggs-and-no-husband-since-38-keep-her-young-at-115.html
4. Spider Martin took the famous photos of Bloody Sunday in Selma, 1965. And was also George Wallace’s campaign photographer. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/arts/design/spider-martins-photographs-of-the-selma-march-get-a-broader-view.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
5. The inventor of Nutella, which made him justifiably the richest man in Italy, has died. On Valentine’s Day. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/business/michele-ferrero-pioneer-who-gave-the-world-nutella-dies-at-89.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

I've started to keep a list of rules. These are things I tell almost every author after I've edited their work. I'd like to wrap them in a bow and send them to anyone working on a book, whether they be novelists or botanists.

This week's writing prompt (which is really a revision prompt) is a bit like that list. Rather than telling you what to write, or focusing on words and paragraphs, it asks you to consider the whole narrative. The forest, rather than the trees.

Often I am asked for more prompts for academic or serious nonfiction writers. Each time I say, "but you should do them all because you too are a writer." All writers should think of their craft, language, and storytelling. And this revision prompt is no exception--all prose writers, regardless of genre, should consider questions like these.

Five More Questions to Ask During Revision:

1. Does this draft have a beginning, middle, and end?

2. Do scenes flow logically from on to another?

3. Is there a missing scene?

4. Is the ending too rushed, or to the contrary, too slow?

5. Does the ending leave you with too many questions to be able to say what the piece is about?

--from The Pocket Muse 2: Endless Inspiration for Writers by Monica Wood

It’s all in the details....part 2

You probably saw this coming…take a look at the list of details and moments you created for last week’s writing prompt. Pick one thing (or for that matter, several things) to use as your jumping off point. Build a story around that overheard bit of conversation, giving it flesh and bones. Give the woman at the bus stop a life, a home, an adventure. Remember those subtle details are what we are after here--the bits that tranform a collection of facts into a story.

And since you’ve got this shiny new notebook, use it. Keep noticing and recording. Anytime an idea, character, or chunk of story comes to you, write it down. When that line you’ve been fussing over finally comes clear while you’re in traffic, write it down (or record it on your phone so you don’t crash). Don’t worry if it’s silly, trite, or irrelevant to your current project. Don't judge it, just collect it. Something in there will be worthwhile, trust me. 

It’s all in the details…

This week’s writing prompt is about paying attention to your world, rather than getting words on paper (though I hope it helps you do that as well). It’s also one that will require you to hang with me for more than a single sitting.

Like anything, writing is a habit. It’s more about making time, setting a schedule, and sitting your butt in the chair than it is about divine inspiration. But sometimes we need a little inspiration, divine or not. So all this week I want you to gather it.

Keep a notebook, a sturdy sheet of paper, or (sigh) an iPhone on you. Anytime something strikes you, write it down. An overheard snippet of conversation, a powerful smell, the way emotion washes over your child’s face, a song lyric, the woman standing at the bus stop. Big or small, write down whatever catches your eye or your imagination. You won’t remember when you get home. Grab it before it’s gone.

This is about the subtle detail, the nuance, the little pieces that transform your writing from a collection of facts to a story. At the end of the day, it’s not telling me how tall you subject is that makes them come alive. It’s showing them to me, and often it’s these little bits of life we capture that make this distinction. So spend the week gathering glimmers of life. Notice, observe, record.

*Inspired by sage advice in The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith

*Image of Word Nest by Siobhan Martin

A short and sweet writing prompt this week (and not just because I have a fast-approaching deadline and homemade chicken potpies to make for a birthday dinner):

Beyond Words. Create a brief fragment of an epiphany, a moment beyond words, beyond explaining, in which a character sees the necessity of change. 300 words. 

--Brian Kiteley, The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises that Transform Your Fiction (Writers Digest)

It’s not a very well kept secret. My name is heather, and I have some serious luddite tendencies. I’ve confessed (here) my undying affection for people, pencil, and paper.

Don’t get me wrong--I love my computer. It’s handy and pretty (thank you, Apple). But when we write on the screen, there’s an almost overwhelming urge to edit. To scroll up and down, rereading, tweaking, and moving entire blocks of prose before you’ve even finished a chapter.

It’s also easy to fool yourself into thinking these tidy typed words are it. That you’re crafting a finished product that must be perfect, rather than a first draft. This denial of the draft becomes a much more cumbersome feat to pull off with your pen.

So today, I’m forcing my ways on you (bwahahahaha).

Today’s writing exercise requires you to turn off your computer. To pull out a pen (or really do me proud and grab an actual wooden pencil) and a pad of paper.

Choose a discrete part of your current writing project—a single character, scene, or background history—that has been troubling you. And just write. Don’t reread, don’t tweak, don’t edit. Simply put words down on the page.

When you’re done, and only when you’re done, reread it.

When we allow ourselves to finish a section before we monkey with it, our edit is so much better. We can approach our writing with fresh eyes. The gaps, clunky sentences, and thick parts are that much easier to see when we’ve not been looking back all along. We give ourselves time and distance, which gives us perspective.

*Inspired by The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself by Susan Bell