My writing group in Boise handed out a blank index card and it fixed my whole process

Wren Kim · 2026-10-08T07:45:04.584102+00:00

I go to a small writing group that meets at a coffee shop in Boise every other Tuesday, usually 6 or 7 of us. About 3 months ago the host handed everyone a blank index card and said write one prompt on it, then pass it left. I got a card that just said "the last thing you returned to a store." I wrote 900 words in 20 minutes, way more than I ever get from prompts like "write about loss" or "a door opens." Something about the small size of the card and how plain the prompt was just let my brain relax. Now I keep a stack of index cards on my desk and I write my own short prompts on them all week, stuff I actually notice, like "the sound the ice maker makes" or "a lie you told at a cookout." The big, deep prompt lists online stopped working for me once I saw how much better the small specific ones did. Has anyone else found that shorter, weirder prompts get more words out of you than the heavy ones?

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My writing group in Boise handed out a blank index card and it fixed my whole process | Creative Writing Prompts - HW Forums