After my mother passed away in 2014, I was left in a writing desert. There was very little that inspired me. In the darkest time of my life I couldn’t do the one thing that had lifted my head above water for all of my days. The April following her death, I made a challenge to myself to complete the poem-a-day prompts. I needed to release some of that pain even if I couldn’t seem to pull the ideas up from my own core.

What I learned about prompt writing was that it didn’t feel as generic as I had imagined it would. It gave me an opportunity to look at my own life and feelings from a different perspective, one that I wouldn’t have bothered to give any attention to. I had also started a blog called The Forked Road: A Journey of Friends. The intention was to get myself to write everyday and to drag my fellow writers along with me. It worked for awhile. It helped me get my life back on track.

Yesterday, I made a random post on Facebook about getting my prompt list completed. I didn’t share the prompts because so many places have their own. My writer friend David contacted me this morning to ask if I was going to post it. I suppose I hadn’t considered it. This list is different than others you may have seen. I make a list of 26 prompts that are good for two months. If there are any left that aren’t used, they get rolled over into the next group.

Here are the prompts for March and April 2020. Have fun. Look at your life from different angles, curl up the edges, and look in the dark places. Reach back to the spots that barely get touched.

1. a plague 2. a piece of chalk 3. viridian 4. quote to live by 5. bicycle 6. epiphany 7. jangling 8. three generations 9. deja vu so strong you fall over 10. 100th birthday party 11. doorbell 12. seven sins 13. discordant 14. peripheral 15. hijack 16. conquer 17. assuage 18. tilt 19. requisite 20. gnash 21. equivocal 22. defenseless 23. crevasse 24. clay 25. apostate (renegade) 26. stringent