Thought Thinkers | Monthly Prompt

Thoughtful October Prompts

Spooky vibes to kick it off

Of all the thoughts that can be thought, a common topic of thought is thinking. Thinking about thinking, or meta-cognition, can generate a whirlpool of reflection. In a publication like ours, this perpetual cycle might serve a writer well.

I’m a sucker for curating an article from a brain bending series of thoughts, but a writing prompt never fails to reel in an inspiring idea for a piece. A life preserver to save you from an endless reverie before you end up a fossilized skeleton with a dead hand propping up your chin. As festive as that sounds, we have some prompts that will be presented each month as a way to bring thoughts of a masterpiece to fruition.

You can think of the prompts not as rules, but guidelines for your creative process. If you’re rolling your brain down a bowling alley, you probably want the bumpers up. Our monthly prompts will be broken down into a couple of themes that will feature some rhetorical questions to spark inspiration.

Next month, we will share our favorite prompt pieces from October. Be sure to use the “Thoughtful Prompts” tag when submitting your article. Without further ado, here are the themes for this month.

Spooky Stories: Grab a seat on a decaying log around the fire, roast a s'more, and recount your most terrifying tales with a flashlight aimed up at your face! (Perhaps bring a blankie too).

Have you ever seen a ghost? Maybe you lived in a haunted house? What's your thoughts on paranormal encounters anyways? Tell us about the time you went walking in the woods alone during a full moon and stumbled upon a witches coven. How did you avoid a frightful fate?

One of my spookiest memories is the day I found what seemed to be old blood stains on many of the neglected hardwood floors hiding under ripped up carpets in my childhood home. I still don’t know anything about it. I’m honestly too afraid to find out.

Favorite Halloween: Dawn your favorite costume or mask, decorate the room with cob webs and candles, then share your most cherished memories from everyone's favorite holiday as you stuff your face with a pillow case full of your dentist's worst nightmare.

What's your favorite way to celebrate Halloween? Do you trade candy or horde your sack of treats? Have you ever won a costume contest? Write about that party where you drank a mystery potion and woke up next to Freddy Krueger, an inflated dinosaur, and all three Power Puff girls. Did you ever piece together your night?

I love to reminisce on the years my family had season passes to a local amusement park. In October, they would have corn mazes, haunted houses, and frightful spaces to wander through. I’ve always been a fan of jump scare horror films, so having actors pop out around foggy corners never fails to amuse me.

In future editions of Thoughtful Prompts, we will link to past prompts if you feel called to revisit or reflect on any topics you missed out on. Respond to these prompts in whatever way you feel called to; whether it be poetry, prose, fiction or an essay, we are excited to hear what kind of thoughts these prompts inspire. Please link this article at the bottom of your piece, and if you’ve never written for Thought Thinkers before, read over our guidelines.