Hello good morning, welcome to DAY ONE of 2025. I will be trying to write for at least 10 minutes every single day this year, and I’m posting (and doing) a daily ten-minute writing exercise on the daily podcast And Now We Write to keep myself accountable.

This month, as one of four “themes” for January, I’m adapting a handful of prompts from The 3am Epiphany by Brian Kitely. If you like these and you can swing it, grab a copy and check out all 200+ exercises.

Today’s ten-minute writing exercise is a simplified version of #58:

Tell a bedtime story to a child or group of children, a story you make up on the spot. As you tell the story, the children should try to interfere with where the story is going.

If you’re also trying to write a bit more this year, I’m queueing up daily ten-minute exercises that may come in handy. So subscribe to the daily podcast and/or come right on back here to the site for another writing prompt tomorrow. The writing exercise themes for this month are:

• First lines and beginnings
• The 3am Epiphany by Brian Kitely
• Sparks from Japanese literature
• Borrowed forms

Most days will have a standalone writing prompt on one (or more) of these themes — I’ll post them here and also on the daily podcast episode for And Now We Write. But we’ll also write a complete work of flash fiction together the week of Monday, January 20 – Sunday, January 26, so get pumped for that. Ten minutes a day, starting from a blank sheet of paper, and you’ll exit the week with a complete work of flash fiction of ~900-1200 words. No pre-work needed. And of course, zero homework.

See you tomorrow for a new day of writing!