10 Writing Prompts for Mothers
You don't need to feel inspired. You don't need a clear hour or a quiet room or a sense that you have something important to say.
You need a prompt and eleven minutes. That's all this is.
These ten prompts are written for the mother who was a writer — who still is a writer, even if the writing has been mostly happening in her head for the past few years. They're specific on purpose. The more specific a prompt, the less room there is for the internal editor to get in the way before you've even started.
Pick one. Set a timer. Write until it goes off. Don't read it back until tomorrow.
Before you begin
A note on time: eleven minutes is not a consolation prize. It's the whole point. The constraint is the thing that makes it possible. You are not waiting for a better circumstance. You are writing in this one.
A note on quality: none of these prompts ask for good writing. They ask for honest writing. Those are different things, and honest is more useful right now.
A note on what counts: the notes app counts. The back of a school letter counts. A voice memo you transcribe later counts. Whatever you have to hand is the right tool.
The 10 Prompts
Prompt 1 — The sentence that won't leave you alone
There's a sentence you've been carrying. It arrived in the shower, or in the car, or in the middle of the night, and you almost lost it but didn't quite. Write it down. Then write the next sentence. Then the one after that.
You don't need to know where it's going. The sentence knows. Follow it.
If you get stuck: Write the sentence first. Even if it's only half-formed. Even if it doesn't make sense yet. The rest will come.
Prompt 2 — The thing you haven't said
Write the thing you haven't said to anyone. Not a confession, it doesn't have to be dramatic. It might be something small. An ambivalence. A feeling that doesn't fit neatly into conversation. The thought that visits you and then disappears before you can do anything with it.
Write it down. Give it some room.
If you get stuck: Start with: The thing I haven't said is... and finish the sentence without stopping to think.
Prompt 3 — Before
Write about a specific moment from before you were a mother. Not a big moment, a small one. The kind you wouldn't have thought to remember, except that for some reason you have.
What were you doing? Where were you? What did the air smell like? What were you worried about?
If you get stuck: Close your eyes and find a room from that time. Describe what you see.
Prompt 4 — The interruption
Write a scene that keeps getting interrupted. You are trying to do something (it doesn't have to be writing) and you keep being stopped. Don't smooth it over. Don't skip to the moment you're finally alone.
Stay in the interruption. Write it in real time. What do you feel in your body when it happens? The love and the irritation, the patience wearing thin, the complicated thing that happens when you need something and someone needs you more.
If you get stuck: Start with the most recent interruption. Write exactly what happened, as plainly as you can.
Prompt 5 — A letter to the woman you were
Write a letter to the version of yourself who was writing before children. What do you want her to know? What would you warn her about? What has surprised you about who you've become?
You can write this as a proper letter or let it be something looser. A note. A list. A single long sentence that doesn't stop for breath.
If you get stuck: Write just one sentence. The thing I most want you to know is...
Prompt 6 — The stolen hour
Describe the specific time and place where you actually write, or where you would write if you let yourself. The car park. The bath. The five minutes before anyone wakes up. The notes app at 11pm.
Don't make it romantic. Write the reality of it: the interruptions you're bracing for, the guilt you're ignoring, the sentence you're reaching for anyway.
If you get stuck: Start with the time of day and the location. Just the facts. The rest will follow.
Prompt 7 — What your child doesn't know about you
Write about something that is true about you that your child doesn't know. It might be something from before they existed. It might be a feeling you carry quietly. It might be the person you were, or the person you're still trying to become.
You don't have to share this with them. This one is just for you.
If you get stuck: Start with: What you don't know about me is...
Prompt 8 — The in-between
Write about the feeling of being between the person you were before motherhood and the person you are becoming. Not who you were, not quite who you're going to be. The doorway between the two rooms.
What does it feel like to stand there? What can you see from the threshold that you couldn't see from either room?
If you get stuck: Write one thing you've left behind. Then one thing you're reaching toward. Then the space between those two sentences, that's the prompt.
Prompt 9 — The book that made you
Write about the book that made you want to be a writer. Not a review, an account. Where were you when you read it? How old were you? What did it do to you? Is it still doing it?
Then write one sentence about the writer you were when you first read it, and one sentence about the writer you are now.
If you get stuck: Name the book first. The memories will follow the title.
Prompt 10 — Eleven minutes, no prompt
Set a timer for eleven minutes. Write without stopping. No subject. No structure. No plan.
If you don't know what to write, write I don't know what to write until something else arrives. Something always does.
Don't read it back until tomorrow. Or don't read it back at all. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you wrote.
After you write
There is no after. You wrote. That's enough.
If something arrived that surprised you, save it. Put it somewhere. Don't call it anything ambitious yet. Just keep it.
If nothing came, if it felt mechanical and strange and not at all like the writing you used to do: that's fine too. The first time back is always like this. The second is a little easier. The third time, sometimes, something opens.
Come back tomorrow. Or next week. Or whenever the eleven minutes appear. They will appear.
A word from Demi Press
Demi Press exists for the mother who was a writer and still is, even if the writing has been mostly happening in her head. We believe you don't need to earn your way back to the page. You just need a prompt and eleven minutes and the decision to begin.
If this was useful, our newsletter Letters from Demi Press is where we send permission, prompts, and the kind of honesty that makes you feel less alone in the fragments. We'd love to have you there.