A writing prompt and let's talk about ruptures ⛓️‍💥

open for some writing inspo

Steph Coelho

Oct 03, 2025

this week’s prompt:

A lightning strike.

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musings

This week in my writing program, we’ve been discussing ruptures. What happens when you hit a point where your work greatly diverges from your initial intention? And I wanted to share my response to that question this week:

Earlier this year, I think right before starting TWS, I came to a realization about my WIP that made things way more complicated than I had intended, that changed the original story and the original intentions behind literally everything I had written.

Kind of overwhelming, tbh!

Through workshopping (and getting some incredible feedback from my peers!!), things began to unravel for me, and the story cracked open again and again.

There was a point when I felt a bit anxious about it all. Afraid about what it meant for my WIP. Would I get bored? Would it be too much to handle? I felt stuck.

Then, a big bucket list trip I had been looking forward to got canceled. I cried for days. I don’t think anything happens for a reason, but I do think we have control over how we respond to the randomness. So, I allowed myself to be sad, then took the time off work to outline and map things out, to really generate a shape for my WIP. Even when I’m not writing, I’m churning it all over in my head. I’m getting more and more familiar with every nook and cranny.

I think old me would have been scared away by any rupture, thinking that it meant a stopping point, a sign (or opportunity?) to give up. It might depend on the work, of course, but I see these ruptures now as seedlings emerging from the ground. A crack in the earth where something is emerging, unfurling. It won’t look anything like the seed under the surface, though it certainly has the same DNA.

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