As a child, I loved...
a writing prompt for you + May Writing Hour
Welcome to Writing in Company. This is a community for you, whatever your experience with writing. It’s an invitation to write about what matters—grief, gratitude, grace, and more. In an off-kilter world, using our words can help us stay centered and move toward healing and wholeness. Writing in company with others saved me once. Let’s keep writing now, alone and together, and trust our words to help us see and say what matters.
Every time I’m at my parents’ house, I rummage through old photos looking for treasure. In the one that tumbled out of a stack most recently, I stand with my two younger sisters in the entrance hall of our old house. All three of us are wearing dress-up clothes—swishy fancy dresses our mother once wore, then stashed in a basket on the third floor. Our hair is long and messy, tangled by hair ties with balls at both ends. We are holding hands and beaming. Who knows what the game was. It doesn’t matter. The joy was in pretending.
The photo inspires a list of things I loved as a child (besides my sisters—hey y’all.)
imagining—making a family out of pencil stubs inside my school desk, listening to records especially those that had a book attached to the record sleeve, writing and making little books like Jan and the Jumprope, sending my Barbies to the drive-in movie theater in the den, playing make-believe games and dress up, playing school where I was always the teacher
roller-skating—around and around the circular drive, with a break to play Jacks, or walk on stilts, or jump on the trampoline preparing for the Olympics someday
dancing—years and years of ballet classes and recitals, and making up dances in the living room with my sisters and friends
the cats, the dogs, the birds, and Sam the turtle
books, books, always books—with plucky heroines like Nancy Drew and words like plucky
I could write about this all day, but I’m headed to pick up the sister that’s not in the photo and drive south to the treasure trove of photos. Maybe we’ll play dress up….
a writing prompt
Make a list of things you loved, or loved to do as a child.
Pick something from the list and write more about it. If it feels right, use the third person: “She sits on the front step and buckles the roller skates….”
Or, write a letter to your younger self, with your list in mind: “Dear Julie, when was the last time you danced?”
May Writing Hour - Sat. May 24 | 4-5 pm Eastern
My next live writing hour on Zoom for paid subscribers is in two Saturdays. If you want to write in company with others, you are welcome to join in. You can upgrade your subscription for a month ($7) just to try it. A separate email to paid subscribers will go out with the link, or you can find it on my Substack tab called Writing Hours. Let’s write together.
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Each week I share some ideas and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft a writing project, as prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. If this one doesn’t resonate, look back through the archive for more. Clicking the heart to like this post helps keep my writing prompts visible and my own writer’s heart grateful.
Thanks again for demonstrating how a single photo becomes an portal to a new world.