Prompts!
We have two pieces of exciting news!
Some of you may remember the days when Twitter was a friendly place, full of writers, and we regularly posted writing prompts. These were much missed when we left Twitter, and we’re now able to start them again! We’ll be sharing a prompt here on Substack and on BlueSky every week, starting today. We’ll be offering a range of prompts including phrases, writing topics, images and sentence starters, and here on Substack we’ll add the occasional writing tip as well.
However, we realise not everyone might want a weekly email from us, which brings us to our second piece of news. We’ve made a few changes, and if you receive your substack posts by email you now have a choice as to what you receive in your inbox. By default you’ll receive all our posts. But if you’d prefer only to receive our posts about writing, or our prompts, or news of our courses and events, you can choose. Just go to your subscriber account here: https://thewritingtree.substack.com/account
And tick the posts you’d like to have emailed to you.
All our posts will continue to be available here on our Substack site.
There’s no time like the present, so here’s our very first Substack writing prompt!
Your prompt is to start with the following phrase and keep writing:
I write because…..
You can write for as long as you like - we recommend 7 minutes as a minimum.
Feel free to share your writing for this prompt in the comments if you’d like to. Happy Writing!
I write because in writing I'm free,
In writing I'm me,
In me no one is judging,
In judging, I can believe,
I can believe in me.
Believing is powerful,
Invigorating,
Rewarding,
Validating,
I write because it identifies me.
There's no need to stay in the lines,
Use grammar correctly,
Make sure stanzas rhyme,
In essence be someone else's representations of me.
I'll be who I want to be!
Who has been hidden for far so long,
Who at last doesn't need external validation,
Who can trust in a process that reclaims me.
Yes I'm still vulnerable and scarred,
A product of others cruelty,
But in writing these traits don't define,
In writing I can fly free.
Bob the Druid /I\ 🕯️🍃
March 17th 2026
This poem was inspired by the Writing tree’s prompt -. I write because
I Write Because…
I write because the world can be mean, and so can many of my relatives. Some love me deeply; others seem to love me out of obligation, tethered by family rather than connection. Most misunderstand me. Words can be hollow. Actions and reactions reveal what is real.
I write to make sense of people. I study people for a living. I am a social studies teacher. The study of humanity is central to my craft. History is the sequencing of human behavior: push and pull factors, overlapping Venn diagrams of similarity and difference, an endless chain of cause and effect.
I write to calm my swirling mind, however a feeble attempt to make sense of the insensible, the absurdity of humanity. The world feels as though it is unraveling. War looms. Cities are destroyed. Leaders trade insults instead of solutions. And yet, the noise continues.
As I write, students interrupt me with questions: What does “languish” mean? What does this slide say about the incarceration of immigrants?
They sit in a dual enrollment Sociology 101 course—the foundational study of people. We examine the strange within the familiar. We separate the individual from the system, and then reconnect them. Today, we study prisons through data from think tanks and government agencies. These teenagers will soon be voters. Civics is not just knowledge, but also the ability to question, interpret, and evaluate.
Some people scold teachers:
“Don’t insert your politics.” “Stay neutral—like a mannequin.”“Stand for the pledge. Tell students they live in the greatest country in the world.”
These people want teachers to celebrate and simplify. Teach the three branches, the amendments, a few historical figures (mostly dead white men) and move on. Do not get political.
And yet, New York State requires students to grapple with enduring issues—power, nationalism, conflict—through both history and current events. Students must write enduring issue essays in a climate that wants them to only make historical references and not connect yesterday to today.
So who decides what is political?
Is it the current event a teacher brings into discussion; Questioning elected leaders; Debating policy; or reading a children’s book about diverse cultures?
Who decides?
Regardless, I must teach my students to write enduring issue essays and craft strong thesis statements. They must learn to write, because writing is thinking. It is the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy: analyzing, evaluating, creating.
I write because I must practice what I teach. Writing is difficult, but difficulty softens with practice.
Ultimately, I write to understand how to teach my students to write with purpose, evidence, and clarity. I write alongside them, hoping to see the process through their struggles—and maybe, through that, better understand my own.