I want you to write a personal essay about a day when you have celebrated something. It could be Christmas, a birthday, an achievement, or something else.

Remember, in a personal essay, you need to be open, honest, and keep yourself in the piece. Use the ‘I’ voice. Try to tie together a detail of the day with how the day changed you. Remember, it’s not only in fiction that readers look for characters to grow and change.

Using up to 500 words, write about this day of celebration.

I meet so many writers who can’t figure out how to get to the end of what they’re writing so it’s worth taking time to practice.

As you think about an ending, think about what’s changed – how has the character changed, even within a short scene? What has happened to them to get them to this new place?

In the prompt this week, I’m going to give you the end, and you’re going to write the scene that leads to this last line:

Sam jumped.

Write up to 500 words finishing with those two words at the very end.

When you’re describing a place, think about how the movement and actions of a character in that place can reveal what the place is like. For example, if your character has to push through a crowd, the reader sees and feels the crowd without you having to tell us the room is crowded.

Imagine that you are the last person left in the world. Write up to 400 words describing the world as you wake up in it. Think about not only sights and smells, but also what actions you must take – how can the things you do in the empty world show the reader what the world is like?