🆆 Micro Monday: Write What You Are Unable to Say
Micro Monday Newsletter Prompt #130
It’s Micro Monday, where you get a quote and a writing prompt to help you build a portfolio of work. If you’re new to micro prose and writing with me, check out this post here.
Quote #130
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
Anaïs Nin
Prompt #130
Write about a sunset. Where were you and who were you with?
Set the timer for 10 minutes and start writing. When the timer goes off, give the piece a title, count up the words, and share it in the comments.
Three Things with Abigail Thomas and Darien Gee
“When I’m finished with something, or it feels finished … I go back and see what I can cut. I cut it down to the bone.” Abigail Thomas
Watch the replay of my conversation with
, author of Safekeeping and Still Life at Eighty, now available. We discussed three of her micro essays, and then Abby shared a writing tip and prompt. She is a master of the short form and making ordinary moments extraordinary.This episode is free in its entirety until June 30, 2025. Share your 3-sentence piece in the comments!
Writing Workshop: Paint Chips to Prose
What: 3-week micro prose workshop
When: June 30-July 20, 2025
Where: Here on Substack!
My next 3-week writing workshop on Substack, Paint Chips to Prose, begins next week for paid subscribers. Explore how color triggers memory and moments through 10-minute micro prose prompts. You’ll finish the series with 21 new pieces of micro prose. 🙌🏼
10-Minute Live Writing Session (Free)
June 26, 2025 Thurs 12:00 pm PDT (click for reminder link)
July 4, 2025 Thurs 2:00 pm PDT
July 7, 2025 Mon 4:00 pm PDT
July 16, 2025 Weds 4:00 pm PDT
Join me on Substack for 10-minute Live Writing Sessions (LWS). The live session is free; the replay and bonus content are for paid subscribers.
I sign on 5 minutes before we begin and stay for 5 minutes after to answer questions or do a short craft talk. We always start writing at the top of the hour, and you are welcome to jump in/head out at any time. Even if you join with 2 minutes left on the timer, you will get some writing done. Trust the process and yourself as a writer.
Past writing sessions are here. In last week’s LWS, I shared some of my Notes and how to uplevel the quality of your Notes by writing micro. I also include a free 6-page Substack Storyteller guide.
Thai Food in Long Beach, Your Birthday 2023
The three of us had spent the day together—I don’t remember what we did earlier in the day other than go to the shoe outlet in Pasadena. After that, we were hungry, and it didn’t feel like we had done anything special enough to constitute your birthday celebration. “Let's go to Long Beach,” I suggested, so we piled back into the car and made our way there.
We were both older now, not your little girls anymore. The firm boundaries between parent and child were just beginning to melt. You weren’t yet completely used to your disapprovals not having an effect on us. We all lived in different worlds now. You, 7 hours away in Sacramento and my sister, an hour from my apartment in Los Angeles, more or less, depending on traffic. It was feeling easier to be with one another, no dirty dishes or laundry in the way, you not needing to break your back working from morning until night so we could survive. We were in spaces where we could breathe, after so many years of being cramped together in that shoe-box apartment.
We chatted in between mouthfuls of fried chicken doused in fish sauce and lime, sopping up tamarind sauce with spoonfuls of pineapple fried rice. When we walked out, the sun was beginning to set, and we headed down to the shore. We imagined ourselves in those big houses, sitting on the balcony in the mornings, walking down to the beach in the evenings. The sky was a faded blue like an old sheet, coming down into the ocean where the surface of the water reflected the same color, making it so the horizon line so thin you almost couldn’t see it. I almost couldn’t tell where the separation was between water and sky. Almost.
300 words
*did a one-block 10 minute revision with this one!