Three-minute writing challenge: Echoes
The time it takes to stick the kettle on and let your tea brew. I supply the prompt, you supply the words: one sentence or paragraph. No overthinking.
Each time I sit down to select a prompt, I swerve away from the obvious. I like to keep these challenges as open-ended as possible, because it’s nice to feel uninhibited, even if it is for just three minutes. However, you always surprise me. I learnt pretty quickly that those who read my monthly prompts have a wide range of lived experience, meaning that a prompt titled ‘naked mole rat breeding habits’ would still produce fifty different creative responses. That’s the wonderful thing about these challenges. You never know where they’ll lead. Before you unsheath your pen—don’t worry—we’re leaving mole hijinks for another time.
Today, we’re talking about echoes.
When our flat underwent repairs, we took around twenty-five frames from the wall, stacking them in a cluttered office like we were digging out treasures for the poor man’s Antiques Roadshow. Three months later, when I stepped back inside, my squid baby wriggling on my hip, the noise of the empty room felt strange without the padding of portraits and parties staring back at us. The baby squealed, shocking herself into silence as her voice bounced back. The last time she had been in that room, her sounds were mewling and small. Not anymore.
A note: The three-minute writing challenge is a monthly call for submissions, with the Library Shelf of Challenge Winners post revealed a week later. Between each challenge, I publish posts on writing, motherhood, and all the creative juggling in between. This is the ethos of Not A Write Off. Creative moments can be found in snatched minutes as well as whole hours.
If you want to see what writers came up with last time, have a look at the Top Shelf entries from the last prompt, which was all about the theme: Dawn
Top shelf challenge entries in a library of: Dawn
I have a story to tell you later. It’s about watching amber light spread across the domed hall of a Georgian palace, me watching from the window, the grass outside sharp with frost. It’s the first time in forever that I actively looked for dawn—tired—but not seeking to rush away from it. Helped, of course, by a cast iron radiator and sub-zero temperatur…
New here? Here’s what to expect:
A monthly, three-minute writing challenge
Launched on a Wednesday (for that mid-week reset)
Submit one sentence up to one paragraph
Favourite entries will be pooled and published on Not A Write Off one week after the challenge is launched'
Outside of the challenge, I write regularly about my life as an published author of contemporary fiction and how this fits around my other job; raising a one-year-old. I also write pragmatic, down-to-earth posts about writing craft and the publishing industry.
Have you got itchy fingers? The urge to write something, but not the time? This is your invitation to stop, just for a minute. In fact, make that three.
If you stopped scrolling on your phone to read this, stick with me for a little while longer. Don’t close the email. There’s some research behind this three-minute thing. It’s the ideal amount of time to overcome an avoidance mindset. You know, that one that tells you that whole, sprawling afternoons are the only ones suitable for writing. Not so!
“Three minutes quickly becomes six minutes, or nine, and mostly, before you know it, the task is done,” - Dr. Jennifer Wild, psychologist
Writing is daunting, I know that first hand. What if it’s terrible? What if I have nothing to say? What if it’s so good that I realise I have a whole book in me? All of this could be true! Shall we find out?
How to tackle the challenge:
Interpret the challenge however you like. There is no right or wrong. The prompt is there as a jumping off point, but go wild.
Entries can range from one sentence to one paragraph (not like… a Dickens paragraph)
To kick-start the challenge, set a three minute timer and stop when the bell goes off
I encourage you to write in the moment, without pulling from any previous work
Post your writing in Notes by restacking this post and tag so that I don’t miss it
Tag anyone whose words you would like to see. Non-fiction writers, poets, business owners, public speakers, I’m looking at you! Here, fiction is your friend.
This week’s prompt: Echoes
An echo can be intentional. Mathematical, even. It is closeness. The mimic of an original. An echo cannot exist without having come from something first. It’s sound waves, warbling from walls. It’s a feeling, an idea, a sense of connection between minds, some of which you may have only read, but never seen. Echoes can be observed, heard, or felt. It might be the bookend swing of a child’s arm as they stride alongside their father, the throat that croaks with shared pain, the uniform windows of a tower block that reflect the mid-afternoon sun. Echoes are everywhere, if we stay still for long enough to catch them.
What do Echoes mean for you?
However you choose to interpret the prompt is true and correct for you. Don’t overthink it, just write.
Emma Lazarus, Echoes
*BONUS* A challenge for the challenge
Do you feel like tackling a wee extra challenge? Try this.
Write about an echo in the most unlikely of places: underwater, underground, or outer space.
Where has it come from? Who is there to hear, or see it?
And a bonus for reaching the end of the post:
What next?
Subscription: You don’t need to be a subscriber to participate
Deadline: Tuesday 20th February
Sharing: I’ll amplify and re-post as many entries as I can, culminating in a monthly Library Shelf of Challenge Winners
Community: Writing doesn’t need to be lonely. Collaborating is fun. Share widely, comment on each other’s entries, and connect with other writers.
Need some music to accompany your writing?
Another plug for the ultimate writing playlist, which I have spent years slowly adding to. No lyrics, just pulsating, tap-into-your-skull music.
If you’d like to be notified when these challenges go live, subscribe to Not a Write Off
About the author:
Abigail Mann is an author, book coach, and writing mentor. She is currently writing her fourth novel for HarperCollins and has a thing for sharp contemporary literature with a comic edge. Abigail coaches with the London Writer’s Salon and privately mentors writers who need to cloud bust their plots, clean up their submissions, or reach a fiction milestone. Her other internet home is here.
Hey Abigail,
Not sure where to post my submission or if I am too late 😊
Echo Prompt
The words you heard determined how you felt in that moment and how you feel now. No matter how much time has passed, the words echo in your memory. "He has no feeling in his legs." They were the first words I heard - my person walked into surgery and came out paralyzed. Those six words echo in my brain.