WRITING PROMPTS | PROMPTLY WRITTEN

Prompt Yourself: Weekly Prompts September 11–17

Prompts to tempt your muses

I’ve started a food cart business. Right now, I wish I hadn’t. Being physically tired and dealing with the staff. Should I continue? Please enlighten me.

Welcome to the 37th week of Weekly Prompts here at PW! Lately, I’ve been quite busy. If you’ve been following my Medium work, you might’ve noticed my absence, and I haven’t engaged as much with your writings. I'm sorry guys but let me explain and I promise to make it up to you guys. 😁

My email inbox also is flooded with Medium notifications from my favorite writers. I even unintentionally neglected my duties as editor for two other publications. I’ve had less time for editing and missed two weeks of our weekly prompts. I owe a big thanks to my co-editors for always supporting me. (Ravyne Hawke, ADEOLA SHEEHY-ADEKALE, Casey Lawrence, Kristi Makusha, Brenda Covarrubias, Megan Llorente, Delia Pena-Gay, Jenny Starr✨, Alexandria Roswick, Brianna Stryker, Mariana Carvalho, Nicole Dake, A.J. Cralle (she, her) )

I’m used to juggling many tasks. I come from a big family, and I worked my way through college. I’ve always aimed to make the most of my time, especially when there’s money involved.😁

So, recently, I ventured into a food cart business, drawn to the comfort of the kitchen.

Initially, things went smoothly. I hired two relatives to assist me, but it seems like a mistake. Instead of helping, they act like bosses, arriving late and leaving a mess. I’m the one exhausted in the end.

To provide context, their parents helped with my father’s death paperwork when he was killed, and we feel indebted. Now, I regret the business as exhaustion and staff headaches consume me.

Yet, I believe it’s part of the process, and things will improve. So I seek advice from experienced entrepreneurs here. What should I do, continue or stop the business?

So, this week’s prompts are inspired by my current situation.

Before we get started, here are a couple of quick reminders:

How This Works

1. Use these prompts to write poetry, fiction, an essay, creative non-fiction, or an article. They are totally open to interpretation! Include a link to the prompt at the bottom of your post.
2. If you use one of these prompts, you can submit the result here at PW, to any publication that accepts prompts from other publications, or self-publish. If you submit somewhere besides PW, make sure to include a link to the prompt and tag PW editors so that we do not miss reading your story!
3. You don’t have to use PW’s prompts to submit work here. We are an open publication for established and new writers to submit their writing — usually based on writing prompts from here or elsewhere, but unprompted stories are also welcome!
4. Please be sure to use the correct Reader Interest Tags when you submit your work to PW so it lands in the right place on the homepage. Please use ONE (not multiple) of the following tags: Poetry, Fiction, Essay, or Articles. Your other four tags can be whatever you wish them to be.
5. Please ONLY submit drafts. To do this, once you have finished writing, instead of hitting the Publish button, click on the three dots (…), choose Add to Publication, click on Promptly Written, and then submit. This will put it into our queue, and we will publish it on our end.
6. Each week, you will find prompts for Monday-Sunday. However, you do not have to use them in the order they are written. Browse them all and use only the ones that resonate with you. Submit your work any time during the week (or long after!).
7. If you previously wrote for PW but haven’t in a while, you may need to go to the Submission Guidelines and ask to be a writer again. We went on hiatus a few months ago and stopped accepting submissions; if you were a writer with us before that time, you will need to sign up again.
8. Have fun!

Are you ready? Great! Let’s get prompting!

Moody Monday

Write a ‘moody’ piece around any of the following:

— indebtedness and its emotional toll — being let down by those you trust — the burnout of taking on too much

Tuesday Twosome

Conceptual theme — Debt

Twosome — Obligation and Offering

Wednesday’s Either/Or

Either Delegating or Doing

Thursday’s Thoughts

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”

— Henry Ford.

Write about a time you persevered through challenges and found success.

Fiction Friday

Use any or all of the following concepts for a story:

— the struggle of maintaining professional relationships with family — the growth and understanding that comes with time and patience — the journey of becoming wiser through trials and experiences

Random Words Saturday

Choose up to 5 of these 10 random words (you may use any form of these words):

• duty
• process
• family
• business
• resonate
• notification
• staff
• help
• engage
• death

Spiritual Sunday

What prayer or mantra comforts you in tough times?

Bonus Prompt — Write a poem, flash fiction story (500 words or less), or essay reflecting the chaos and beauty of juggling multiple responsibilities.

Don’t forget, there are Writing Sparks available in the Monthly Theme.

Also, check out Casey Lawrence's recent ‘AI Made Me Do It’ prompts.

There you have it. A week’s worth of prompts to tempt your muses. We look forward to reading your submissions and I’m excited to hear your tips and points of view. Anything sarcastic, funny, serious, or just casual and nice would be great.❤❤

Bella loves to write about life, psychology, and relationships. Click here to receive an email that guarantees you’ll get Bella’s newest stories delivered straight to your inbox.

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