Writing Prompts to Welcome Autumn
It’s the first day of autumn my friends! 🍂🍁
I haven’t been on substack much because life has been lifing and I gotta be present to it. But today is the first day of fall and I am a girl who lives season-to-season instead of year-by-year. (I’ll write more about that at a different time.) To celebrate the autumnal equinox, I want to offer some writing prompts…
Fall into delusion. Write about falling and let it become as unpredictable as a leaf’s path when it disconnects from the tree. What type of falling is it? Falling in a dream? Falling in love? Falling into debt? A leaf does not fall in one way: its tempo, rhythm, and direction shifts because of its shape. Allow your piece to do the same.
Reclaim a monster myth. (This is a personal favorite.) Who are the monsters from your culture and what can they tell you about decolonizing, taking down patriarchy, protecting children, etc? How does Anansi walk into the beauty shop? Is La Llorona protecting kids from colonial mentality? Are skin walkers actually our repressed transcestors living freely in their queerness?
Slow burn. Write a sensual piece personifying the wax of a candle being consumed by the flame.
Very demure, very mindful. Write a Black Mirror-type piece about a person who lived their entire life off the grid coming into contact with society and it’s coded social media slang.
Recipe swap. Write an abstract recipe to describe an awkward family situation.
Cozy. (Yes, this one is inspired by the Beyoncé song) Your skin is the largest organ in your body! Write an ode to your skin without using adverbs, prepositions, articles (“the” “a” or “an”), and quantifiers.
Childless cat ladies unite. Write a script or agenda for a community meeting of house cats during this election season.
PSL apocalypse. Imagine that climate chance and unending colonization introduced an agricultural plague that targeted cinnamon & clove trees throughout the world. Write a scene about this dystopian reality from the perspective of an agricultural laborer and/or their family members.
Happy autumn writing my friends! Please tag me or put your piece in the comments section. I’d love to read your work!