Fiction: Write a scene where two people meet in a hotel bar or sitting next to each other on the plane
Poetry: Write a poem about those in-between, liminal spaces
Non-fiction: What role does wandering play in your life?

Share a random snippet of something you have recorded for your own reference later (the less context the better, multimedia encouraged)

From my Notes app:

You don’t usually open a closed door.

What can you do with whiskey but connive?

What’s the structure of soul?

Chaos has its place.

Trash on highway 75

Everything is a lizard

Donkey ancestors

The moments of insensitivity were resolved quickly.

I was looking forward to those future memories.

Start your piece as a response to being asked “Have you found what you’re looking for?” Or feel free to incorporate it as an opening line.

“You find what you were lookin’ for?”

“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “As a matter of fact, I have.”

The cashier stared back at me with sunken eyes, lips flatlined. Though I was the only person in the corner store, his patience was fraying like a tattered rag. Go figure, a grouch like him has probably got nobody to go home to.

I whipped out a few dollar bills and swiped the single rose in its crinkling plastic off the counter.

“Keep the change.”

The bell jangled as I pushed the door open to face the brisk evening. With my offering in hand, I made my way toward Crazy Horse. Trixie would be working tonight. I’ll present this rose to her and tell her how I don’t have to look any further. I’ve found love.

Write a monologue, poem, or reflection of varying sentence lengths where you/a character is giving a confession.

A pretty dress can help her feel less lonely, but it doesn’t. She moved cities to help her feel less lonely, but it didn’t. She started a new relationship to fill the emptiness, but it didn’t. She got a new job to bring her spark of happiness back, but it didn’t. In the end, did she find what she was looking for?

Self-love. The purest form of love languages. The idea of smelling your favorite flowers, eating your favorite foods, buying your favorite shoes, painting your nails, and styling your hair. You didn’t have to change your dreams or ideas. Change your surroundings. If you did it and found it, I hope you’re proud of yourself for never giving up.

Write a scene that shows your morning routine from the moment you wake up (spare no inner thought, setting, or sensory details).

The monitor crackles, but it’s more like a fizz, and my erstwhile white noise machine becomes a window into morning discomfort: the baby has woken up and is crying. My maternal instincts win the daily roshambo against the part of me that feels the 5 hours of sleep, that same part of me that protested my alarm clock every morning the semester I signed up for a 9am daily French class back in college (back then, it was competing against Jewish guilt and perfectionism). I pull myself out of bed like a puppet loose on its strings, limbs detaching from my mattress at inconsistent rates, butt-ass naked, and stride forward twenty feet to the bathroom to fill a bottle (4oz water, 2 scoops of formula) then backtrack ten feet and enter the baby’s room. By now, sleepy sounds of confusion have evolved into panicked cries that—sweet fodder for an insecure mom’s ego—abate when he sees me, knowing comfort has arrived. I let him fumble to hold the bottle himself as I extract one of his limbs at a time from the swaddle and sleep suit that keep him from whacking himself in the face all night long. (When he was tiny, this was a surgical precise procedure—the thought of bending back a tiny finger too far!—; by now, I’m jerking his little arms out of the padded sleeves with all the rough-edged efficiency of the masseuse at the $10 massage place down the street.) It’s impossible to be cranky when faced with his perfect trust, and my “resting sleep-deprivation face” lifts into a soft smile while I whisper my good mornings, stroke tiny hands and feet, and bend forward to kiss tiny formula-laced lips. I remove his diaper with one hand and toss it across the room into the trash can with practiced aim, whispering “Kobe”, because I can use all the positive reinforcement I can get at 6:38am. Hard to believe that six months ago, I was changing one for the very first time, stomach still freshly opened and shut, terrified and awestruck at the 4lbs and 11oz of fragile budding consciousness that could barely focus on my face. I replace the diaper and lift him, raise him above my head and repeat “good morning” in Silly Mom Voice until he laughs, and creep back to bed with my warm bundle. I place him under the covers and crawl in next to him, whispering whatever comes to mind and holding the bottle to his mouth, breathing in the shea butter that’s spent the night marinating delicate skin. I’m stalling until 7am, when I can feed him breakfast. Not that a baby can tell time, but can you blame me for wanting a little consistency?

You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.