What are prompts?
ways to bring more to light
What are you trying to bring to light?
I look forward to seeing many of you on Friday (12pm ET) in Brave Space! This week’s Substack is all about prompts. What they are. How to use them. Why we might want them. A healing tip about writing. And the schedule for Brave Space!
Schedule for Brave Space For the week of 10/30 - 11/3 Brave Space sessions include 2 on Monday (for women & afab enbees) at 12pm ET and for everyone at 7pm ET.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (women & afab enbees only) at 12pm ET.
(Tuesday at 10am returns 11/7)
This Week’s Prompt: Do you have a list of ingredients that you like to use to make work? Whether it’s fiction, theatre, poetry, or art, some people make lists of what they want or often use in their work. Things that thrill them (bright or muted colors, etc) or things they dream of using, like a story or an approach... Anne Bogart's Viewpoints includes approaches to making work (for the stage, but it’s adaptable) using items from this list: unexpected sound from a strange source; broken expectations; surprise entrances; revelations of object, space and character; staged accidents; elements: air, earth, water, fire; letting action, space and/or time express emotion; visual metaphor; simultaneous action; contradiction between what is seen and what is heard and more...
What is on your list? Are these things in your work? How can you incorporate them for yourself in ways that enhance what you are trying to do? Pick something from the list above or your own list, and add it to whatever you are working on. Or if you are creating something new, pick something to begin with and move on from there.
Prompt, from the Latin, promptus means to bring to light. See the rainbow on Broccoli’s head? I try, with my prompts, to bring to light certain impulses you may already have. You, showing up for the prompt, allow it to work. Scanning the pages of prompts in a Brave Space session for something to use, your expectation creates the environment that allows the prompt, or a part of the prompt, to work for you. There is magic in this.
A prompt is a noun, a thing you can hold in your hand again and again (and discover parts of). It will take you all kinds of places. Only you can find the limits to it. I suggest you don't spend too much time mulling where to begin or what to do. Grab a part of it and run until you're panting! Then come back and grab another part. Sprints will get you through. Things you don't see today will pop out tomorrow. New ideas will occur. Let them. If I knew what I was going to write before I wrote it, I'd never bother to write it down. I want to find out something new when I sit down to write.
A prompt can be a way to get you to notice your impulses so you can follow them to see where they lead. Actors are trained to notice their impulses, so should all creatives because so much is moving through us that is so much deeper than an idea.
See for yourself. Try a prompt. When you do, the idea is to allow it to work on you fast without thinking. You are not there to control anything. You are a channel, a way for the universe to work through you. Give yourself permission to notice the impulses as they arise. Give yourself permission to like what you like and follow it until it's over, and then connect to something else that attracts you.
Yes, have an intention, but also be open to the impulse. Your intention can be large, open and wide - to give voice to the oppressed, or to summon the ancestors, etc. Have big reasons why you do the work you do - to banish self- doubt as it arises - because it will arise in our culture. And let's work in community, for there is great power in our numbers.
Wholeness Tip: creating a 15 minute/day writing practice where you actually set an alarm and write, with or without a prompt, without censoring yourself, and without worrying about grammar or punctuation, letting your words come as a flow without stopping to think, using the process to allow whatever is inside to arise and surprise you is actually a healing practice (especially for those who dare to write about something difficult). Writing for 15 minutes/day for only 4 days has been shown to create "immune changes that were theoretically consistent with better health." (Pennebaker etal)
Let me know when you plan to show up in a Brave Space session.
Onward,
Emma