Three-minute writing challenge: Zest
a chance to snatch time with your words with the ethos of 'aim low, have a go.'
It feels an age since I last hosted the three-minute writing, so I’ll give you the headlines before we dive in. Firstly, I’ve missed reading your entries. There’s something so satisfying about reading fragments of writing that circulate around a prompt. Every other month, it’s like putting together a zine. One moment I’m reading about the pinprick of tension before a character swoops in for a kiss, the next I’m reading a poem about the sublime seconds of sharp morning light.
From someone who now sits on the other side of a novel draft that has been two years in the making, I cannot tell you how soothing short writing prompts have been. It’s easy to convince ourselves that writing needs to feel hard. That it needs to be contributing to a body of work that says something big and profound. The pressure that comes with the need to turn writing into output, or content, leads to perpetual dissatisfaction, I’ll tell you that for free.
Here, I invite you to create for the sake of creating. When you read the prompt, don’t brainstorm ideas, or spend more than ten seconds thinking about what you’d like to write. Just go for it.
A note: The three-minute writing challenge is monthly, with the Library Shelf of Challenge Winners post revealed a week later. This is to allow time to best showcase entries and allows me to publish posts on writing, motherhood, and creative juggling in between, as is the ethos of Not A Write Off.
💡 Need help with your fiction in August or September?
I am reducing my mentoring capacity from October, so if you are in need of a Plot Cloudbusting session, or need feedback on a Submissions Package, now is a good time to schedule some time in. Whatever your issue is, I can help you get back on track and see the wood from the trees.
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: Retreat
Top shelf challenge entries in a library of: Retreat
Hello, writers. Or, readers. This Library post comes with a small apology, in that it’s a week later than planned. Behind-the-scenes, things have felt very Big in the Not A Write Off world. We’ve been across to East Anglia and back again, experienced a death in the family, and pulled tight over the Easter weekend. It has been necessary and important and …
New to the challenge? Here’s what to expect:
A three-minute writing prompt each month
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 a an almost four-times 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.
✍ If you want to write without an agenda, this is your cue to hit pause for three minutes.
If you stopped scrolling through Notes or your Instagram feed to read this, stay, for a little while longer. Writers who have spent this small amount of time scribbling new words have often found inspiration for essays, short stories, poems, or flash fiction. Who knows where this will take you?
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: Zest
I walked to the market on my home from the pool last week. The greengrocers is one of those stalls that sell fruit and veg in silver bowls, £1 for four fat lemons, six figs, a bunch of jet-washed carrots, or apples from the other side of the world. I walked home with two bags cutting lines across my palm, the lemons rolled out on my kitchen table beside that morning’s unwashed coffee cup. I made two lemon drizzle cakes and zested twice as many compared to what the recipe suggested. It’s the sharpness, the sour which makes my jaw twang, that I love so much. The butter that softens it, the sugar that cuts through. The offer of a wedge, to someone I love, wrapped in tin foil, squashed at the bottom of a bag. ‘Here. I made this. I brought some for you.’
What does ‘zest’ mean for you?
However you choose to interpret the prompt is true and correct for you. Don’t overthink it, just write.
Emily Berry, ‘The Forms of Resistance’
(I implore you to read the whole poem, it is stunning)
Friends, I am so excited to see what you come up with. Of course, there is no requirement to share what you have written—there never is—but writers have told me that these challenges are the first time they’ve played with words publicly in a very long time and it isn’t half as intimidating as you might think. I am your cheerleader. Do you need a little reminder of how to share your writing? Have a look below.
What next?
Subscription: You don’t need to be a subscriber to participate
Deadline: Tuesday 23rd July
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?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I really think this playlist is the best accompaniment to writing. Big claim, I know, but something about listening to it alongside stream-of-consciousness writing makes people cry (me included) so perhaps it’s creative alchemy in process.
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.
Stories are like lemons. Plot is the fruit, imagery the zest : )