Do writers really need prompts? Why can’t they just look around and find something to write about? Something that tickles their imagination or causes their heart to flutter or something that flings a scintilla on yet unformed ideas and makes them burst into an uncontrollable conflagration.
I remember walking from the mess hall to my room at the Indian Military Academy and accidentally looking up. There was a bright blurry halo of the streetlight forcing its way through the thick canopy of leaves on a massive tree and my imagination was excited. I rushed back and wrote a poem. This was apparently a mundane everyday occurrence and millions of people look up and see light filtering through a tree. I too have looked up more than once wanting to rekindle that sensation. I still call it a muse call. This is what helps one transform the mundane into the extraordinary.
This is not to say that looking up will always be an effective muse call. Every little variation in the hues of light and darkness throughout the day is an endless source of inspiration. As is a withered leaf spiralling down. While out on a walk in London, I saw nature introduce me to this tale of autumnal melancholy. I stopped. Waited with my camera poised and clicked the next leaf that spiralled down and touched the surface of water in that pond there. The pond was reflecting the sky, and it was all so full of intense symbols of life, existence, and the afterlife that I wrote this poem that night.
Some days when stillness stays
And reflections whisper what is
A lonesome brown leaf softly says –
I can touch the clouds and kiss.
Poem written on 15 January 2020
The point is that when the heart sincerely wants to write and asks the universe to send in a prompt, the universe obeys. This can happen at any street corner, any bit of overheard conversation, on catching a fleeting glance that says something that you will never hear, or simply coming across a cow standing beside a white bird that you cannot identify. Every moment holds within it the potential to be the spark that ignites a writer’s creativity. Maybe for a few hours, a day, or even longer.
Prompts are vital and they do play a vital role in the structured chaos of the writing process. They are both the cursory touches and the rude nudges that guide fledgling ideas toward coherent narratives. Writing is not an impossible art but the art of turning vague notions into forms that are finally able to say a lot to someone who needs them to say a lot. It is almost like offering a sea of possibilities to replace impossible looking connections. If it pleases you go ahead and call it a synergy between random observations and a coherent layout that begins to look like a tempting offering.
A writer’s life isn’t just passively plonking on a chair to start punching out narratives that turn into a story. The craft of writing invariably begins with willing exploration, and it is only then that the right prompt quietly whispers in your ears and seamless blending of the spontaneous with the suggested then simply happens. It is true that prompts are the whispers of inspiration, but it is what you see and say or do that has the ultimate power to transform the mundane into the extraordinary.
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Arvind Passey
Written on 10 February 2025
