Writing Prompt: What is Time?

Do you regularly free write? Do you wish you did? Several times a month, we’ll post a writing prompt. Open a notebook or a blank page and keep your hand moving for 10 minutes. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation – just write.

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Lately I’ve been writing essays about when my son was a toddler. I’m remembering his high-pitched baby voice, his bouncy toddle, his pudgy round face. So how is it that just recently this child turned nine years old?

People talk about time; those long infant days that never end; the short, dark days of winter; the years that, when you look back, have flown by in the blink of an eye. But what is time? How can some time go faster, some slower?

There are instances in my writing when I find a place where time ceases to exist. As my fingers move over the keyboard, all sense of the world fades and I am in that moment on the page. I create a scene, and eventually when I look up, I find that an hour has slipped past unnoticed.

Other times I sit at the screen, faced with a writing task I don’t want, and time doesn’t pass at all. No matter how much I will it. Time expands out in front of me taunting, pushing me to get to work, or I truly will be there forever.

It’s incredible to me that nine years ago I was birthing a baby. Somehow I still can’t quite wrap my mind around that. Indeed time is strange, but no matter what I think or how I perceive it, it keeps coming, moment after moment.

In your free write today, consider time. What is it? When does it move fast for you? When does it move slowly?

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Please feel free to leave a link to your free write in the comments section below. We’d love to see what you did with this week’s prompt!

Do YOU have a writing prompt to share with Literary Mama readers? Send your 150- to 300-word narrative and associated writing prompt to lmblogcontact (at) literarymama (dot) com. We’d love to read your ideas!