Two Writing Prompts Cheryl Strayed Uses to Unlock Inspiration

Once you get introduced to Cheryl Strayed’ story, it’s hard not to want to know more. Strayed is an American writer who has patiently been working her way up to public acclaim and financial stability, after years of hard choices and struggle, living the writer’s life without knowing if her words would spread.

A few months ago I shared in the Sunday newsletter her excellent interview about writing and money, and today I’ve highlighted an extract from her podcast episode with Tim Ferriss. Ferriss asked Strayed what are the writing prompts she affectionates the most and resonated the most with her students to unlock creativity. Here are two of them:

Write about a Talisman

A talisman is simply an object that has accumulated meaning for you or your character. So this could be anything. A cultural talisman is my wedding ring; we all know what this means. Then there are other things like “You don’t know the meaning of this ring.” That’s a personal talisman. And all those things have a story attached to them. And I found too that when people write about themselves via a physical object it’s incredibly expensive, people are willing to say more about themselves often when the story is about something other than them.

Write about your Darkest Teacher That one is a really important one to me because I would say one of the most significant steps for me as a writer was feeling grateful for the people who taught me things that were difficult, or painful, or ugly. Things I didn’t want to know. And actually getting to a place with them where I did feel grateful for what they had given me.

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