Welcome to the World of Micro
If this is your first time writing or exploring micro, you’re in for a treat. If you’re familiar or a pro with this short form, you’ll find Micro Mondays are a great way to amplify your writing practice and contribute to any creative project you may be bringing to life.
Call it micro prose, micro narratives, micro essays, or micro memoirs, this short form is a powerful way to tell your story. Not only is it bite-sized and accessible to both reader and writer, but micro prose focuses on what’s most essential and compelling.
I define micro as 300 words or less, not including the title. You don’t need to worry about the word count in your initial response to the prompt (aka your first draft), but you’ll want to adhere to it for any revisions. With practice, you’ll find this structure will help you hone your work with each pass, and your brain + creative spirit will respond to this intention by getting to the point…fast.
All you need is 15 minutes to set aside (5 to prep and get settled, 10 to write), with no interruptions, and you’re good to go. We’ll provide you with a thoughtfully-crafted writing prompt each week that will get your creativity flowing.
There’s no editing, no judging, no overthinking. Just writing. This weekly practice is designed to keep you writing while helping you build a portfolio of work, one word at a time. Amplify your work by taking a micro memoir workshop with me anytime.
The Micro Monday Posting Schedule
Prompts are a great tool for everyone, regardless of whether you write creative nonfiction/memoir, fiction, poetry, or a combination of all three. Don’t worry if the prompt doesn’t seem relevant or if your writing feels random — prompts are about discovery and inquiry. You don’t know yet what you have, and responding to prompts helps get you unstuck, wade past the much, and get back into the flow. Trust it.
For the first Monday of every month, we’ll get your imagination flowing with a fiction prompt. All other Mondays will be dedicated to memoir prompts. Starting in 2024, you can expect to see a poetry prompt the third Monday of each month.
First Monday | Fiction |
Second Monday | CNF/Memoir |
Third Monday | CNF/Poetry * |
Fourth/Fifth Monday | CNF/Memoir |
Beginning in 2024, we’ll post poetry prompts in 2024.
And, of course, you are welcome to respond to the prompts in any way you wish — take a CNF prompt and write from the perspective of your fictional protagonist. Or use a fiction prompt to imagine what if for yourself or someone you are writing about. Experimenting with the poetic form may lead to a revelation about how to structure your memoir. And writing outside your chosen genre is a great way to build your writing muscles.
Micro Mondays are about developing a writing practice and getting your mind into a creative flow for the week. It’s about learning a new form that might surprise you. It’s about staying open to whatever comes and wants to appear on the page. It’s about showing up, even if it’s just for 10 minutes a day. Let’s begin.
A Few Guidelines
There are a handful of rules guidelines in the Micro Monday universe:
- Keep your hand moving. Don’t stop to edit or overthink your words—the goal is to get them down on paper first. If you get stuck, just write “I’m stuck” over and over again until a new thought comes in (yes, this really works).
- Let yourself go anywhere the writing leads you. It’s okay if you end up writing something different from how you started out.
- Schedule your writing time. Put it on the calendar or set a reminder on your cell phone. If possible make it a routine by writing at the same time everyday. Yes, you can have weekends off.
- Ask a few friends to join you. Commit to Micro Mondays and share your work via email immediately after. No critiquing, just sharing.
- Count your words. There’s a magic with micro, and it’s all about the word count. If you’re under, that’s fine, but if you’re over, you need to cut until you’re at 300 words or less. Ten minutes of writing, or one letter-sized page (handwritten or double-spaced on the computer), will yield about that much.
- Save the editing for later. As long as your piece is 300 words or less, let the pages pile up for now. I recommend printing out your work each day, or using the same notebook (more on this below), so you can get a sense of progress.
- Title your piece. Even if you feel like the writing isn’t anything special (yet), give it a title. Then date it and put it away. That’s it!
Organizing Your Micro: The Binder System
Keep your writing in a special notebook or folder. Label the notebook or folder, “Micro Mondays.” Date each entry. If you miss a Monday, it’s not the end of the world: you don’t need to make it up, but start again the next week.
If you’re really committed to this process, use a binder. I talk about my binder system in more length in my micro courses and classes, but for now use a binder and add your work each week, with the most current work on top. Keep track of your progress with a Table of Contents at the front of your binder (you’re titling each piece, remember?).
Keep your laptop or notebook handy because you can do this almost anywhere. A quiet space is nice, yes, but if that time or place doesn’t avail itself to you, figure something else out … I know you can.
Micro FAQs
Establish a (Simple) Writing Practice
Writing micro doesn’t have to compete with other writing projects you have going on. Here are a few simple schedules you can use to help you write micro on a regular basis. For more information on using containers and establishing successful writing and revision practices, take one of my Micro Memoir Writing workshops to give you a solid foundation and add the Revision Micro Prose workshop to your library.
Schedule 1 (Full Week)
For the faithfuls and diehards who can’t go a day without micro! You’ll end the week with three new micro narratives and two revised narratives. Not bad for one week’s work for only 10 minutes a day!
- Sunday: write for 10 min
- Monday: write for 10 min
- Tuesday: revise for 10 min
- Wednesday: revise 10 min
- Thursday: write for 10 min
- Friday: revise for 10 min
- Saturday: revise for 10 min
Schedule 2 (Weekends Off)
This schedule is good if you are pressed for time but don’t want to lose momentum. Your priority is generating new work but you also want to do the work of refining an existing piece of writing. You’ll end the week with three new pieces of writing and one revised piece.
- Sunday: off
- Monday: write for 10 min
- Tuesday: revise for 10 min
- Wednesday: revise 10 min
- Thursday: write for 10 min
- Friday: write for 10 min
- Saturday: off
Schedule 3 (Weekends Off)
This schedule is good if you are using my micro revision method and have a plethora of pieces (sorry, I couldn’t resist!) that need to be revised. Your priority is revising your existing pieces while honoring new creative work that might want to come in. You’ll end the week with two revised pieces and one new piece of writing.
- Sunday: off
- Monday: revise for 10 min (prose to poetry)
- Tuesday: revise for 10 min
- Wednesday: write for 10 min
- Thursday: revise for 10 min
- Friday: revise for 10 min
Mastering Micro
A little writing goes a long way. Give me a month, you’ll have 4-5 pieces. Give me a season, you’ll have 12-14. Six months: 24-27. One full year? That’s 52 pieces, give or take.
One full year of 10 minutes of writing each time is 8.67 hours. That’s a day’s work for most people, but if you committed a whole day to writing 52 micro narratives, you’d be hard pressed to hit that goal.
We’re mostly grown-ups here — I don’t need to tell you where you can find 15 minutes ONCE A WEEK. I will say this, however:
There’s a lot you can do with 52 pieces. With 52 pieces, you’ll have choices. Check out our recommended reading list to see how others have used micro in their work.
Once you’ve committed to a writing practice for micro, consider taking a Micro Memoir Workshop. These happen live once a month, and you can register for any past and future workshop for unlimited access. These workshops will help keep you accountable, give you the necessary check-in, and re-affirm your commitment to micro.
Need more prompts to carry you through the rest of the week? I’ve got you!
Prompts and More Prompts
Ready to get started? Find the Micro Monday prompts here.
Need more prompts to carry you through the rest of the week? I’ve got you!
Stay Connected
Micro Mondays are posted every Monday beginning January 2023, and will move to newsletter subscribers beginning January 2024. Join the mailing list to be notified of pop-up write-ins and bonus prompts. 📬