When I talk with writers, I’ve noticed a dislike of using writing prompts. I’ve heard people say that writing prompts are a crutch or a distraction from the serious business of sitting down to write. It feels like writing prompts sometimes get equated with bad daily journals you’ll find at a bargain bin, which are often vapid and stunted. “What did you do last summer?” A rote, shopworn set of questions and answers.
For me though, good writing prompts can often be a gateway. They can put the tire on the tracks rather than sitting at the table endlessly looking at maps and possibilities. They are also a bit like a meal: if you don’t like it, don’t cook or order it again. And there’s always another one.
So when I encountered 2026 Guggenheim Fellow Lucy Ives’s book three six five: prompts, acts, divinations, it was the weirdest and most wonderful set of writing prompts I’ve ever encountered.
“I really wanted this to be something that would shelter people, engage them in a way that would help them be freer in thought and their writing,” Lucy told me on the newest episode of Book Stuff. “You can use this book to write a lot, but it’s also meant to be a space of absorption, like something that holds you in a certain way.” Ives made this book as a form of literature, but also a practical fire starter for writing, too.
Some of these prompts are impossible: “Describe something you’ve completely forgotten.” “Locate a form of knowledge or practice that has either already been lost or about to be lost.” Or challenging: “Write a thirty-page sentence.”
But mainly, these prompts, acts, and divinations are meant to encourage engagement with the reader’s surrounding world. You’ll find plenty of opportunities; these prompts are meant to strengthen relationships with people and places around you. As Ives writes in the introduction, the exercises in this book are meant for “refamiliarizing yourself with your home and the broader ecosystem you inhabit.”
Examples of engagement with the world include keeping a record of vivid descriptions. Make a notebook out of recycled materials. Create a spider web of your family, or a fictional character’s family. Pick up a random set of books from unfamiliar sections of the library and write about the experience. Or collaborate on a piece of writing with an animal. “Microscopic beings are welcome.” You’ll find a jungle gym of ideas and inspiration to write about.
In the conversation, we get into the abundance of human intuition, specific prompts in the book, and what it means to write about something forgotten.
Enjoy this episode on the Book Stuff website and on Apple and Spotify.
Stay curious, keep reading.
