Week 1 / 5x15 Challenge

5 writing prompts + some challenge guidance

Welcome to week 1 of the 5x15 writing challenge where we’ll be writing 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week.

A bit of guidance as we start off:

If you’re on a roll and want to write for more than 15 minutes, of course, feel free! But, you have full permission to walk away at the 15 minutes with zero guilt if that’s all you have time for or that writing session felt like brushing your teeth with sandpaper (we’ve all had those days, shudder).

Unless you’re already in a good writing routine and following along for community, I recommend taking the weekends off. This gives you a chance to rest and recharge, gather new thoughts, fill your cup, and avoid burnout. We want to build something sustainable this month.

Set your timer when you’re ready to start writing, not before. Get your beverage, open your document, pick a prompt, etc. before you hit start. When it comes to scheduling, give yourself an extra 10 minutes for the prep work, saving, closing your document at the end, etc. if you can. Otherwise, you’ll likely find that the time is up before you’ve properly gotten started!

If an alarm going off is going to disrupt your flow, set your stopwatch instead so you can see how much time has passed with a glance but won’t be stopped at the 15 minutes if you’re making good headway. The Clock app on iPhones and Androids have both alarms and stopwatch built in.

Writing Prompts / Week 1

1. When I say go, write down the first word that pops in your head. Go! Now, rhyme that word as many times as you can and write them down in a list. Use this list of rhyming words as the jump-off point for a story (whether or not the actual words appear in the story is up to you, but use this list to generate an idea for a story, character, conflict, setting, or first line and see where the story takes you).