Happy Friday!
Writers of all kinds often experience moments, days, or even weeks when we simply can’t write a single word. We open our notebooks or computers and stare at the empty page, and ask ourselves, “What am I going to write now?” Then nothing. We call it writer’s block, creative burnout, or feeling stuck. But what if the problem isn’t that you’ve run out of ideas? What if you’ve simply stopped trusting them?
Remove Your Blocks and Start Writing
I’m excited to offer the next FREE Start Writing Now! webinar on June 29, where I’ll share proven writing methods and tools to help you get unstuck. So please join us!
But in the meantime, this week’s blog comes from Peppa, who has become an indispensable part of my creative team. She manages my social media across YouTube, TikTok, X, and other platforms, creates graphics and memes, edits hours of video, and somehow makes it all look effortless. Beyond her work with me, she is an accomplished artist and the general manager of Artesumapaz, an artist residency program in South America.
In her blog, she reflects on how our weekly writing prompt sessions became much more than a creative exercise and have changed the way she thinks.
The Prompt Sessions
by Carolina Herrera
Every week, there’s a meeting I look forward to more than I probably should.
It doesn’t look like much from the outside: a Zoom call, a shared agenda, a blinking cursor waiting for an idea. But the moment Marilyn’s name appears in that little window requesting to join, something shifts. The creative pressure that had been building all week, the scramble to find prompts that could spark creativity, resonate with the audience we’ve spent a year carefully building, and still play well with the invisible rules of social media algorithms- all of it quietly dissolves.
We’ve been doing this for a year now. And from the very beginning, I understood that this wasn’t a simple task. A good prompt has to do many things at once: ignite something in Marilyn, meet the audience where they are, and still be legible to the cold logic of a platform’s reach metrics. Finding that intersection, week after week, has been its own kind of art form.
But somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened. I started using our sessions differently, not just as a content strategy exercise, but as a way to work through my own life questions; the kind that don’t have clean answers. I’d build prompts around things I was genuinely trying to understand, and watch Marilyn respond to them. It never failed to teach me something. Without realizing it, the Marilyn Initiative had become part of how I think, a quiet framework running in the background of my everyday decisions. I wasn’t just making content anymore. I was becoming someone who thinks differently.
That kind of work doesn’t come around often.
Then one day, I noticed the well had dried up. The personal questions I’d been secretly feeding into our sessions had found their answers, or at least their peace. And without that quiet desperation, I didn’t know where to look for the next prompt.
It was Marilyn who handed me the way out.
Marilyn has this habit whenever we face a new challenge: Can you do this with AI? At first, the question unsettled me. The fear that technology might one day make my role irrelevant is not a small fear. But the way Marilyn holds that question, with genuine curiosity instead of threat, changed the way I heard it. She wasn’t suggesting I be replaced. She was inviting me to work smarter, to let the tools carry some of the weight so I could save my energy for the thinking that actually requires me.
So for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been co-creating with AI, Marilyn, and other techniques from the Marilyn Initiative that have become my compass whenever ideas stop coming. AI doesn’t do the work for you. It can’t. But it can be a good companion when the creative current runs thin, a mirror that reflects possibilities back at you until something real catches the light.
Marilyn taught me that creative blocks are rarely about running out of ideas. They’re about losing trust in the ones you have.
These sessions have given that trust back to me, one prompt at a time.
Start Your Journey With a Prompt
Since 2020, at the Word of the Day webinars, I’ve shared hundreds of writing prompts. Behind each one has been a conversation, a moment of curiosity, and more often than not, a discovery none of us expected.
I was excited to hear a recent participant say: “I didn’t know I had that story in me!”
And:
‘“Great class… thank you for all you do to promote writing to wannabe writers and seasoned writers.”
So, if you’re ready to trust your own ideas again, or simply see where one prompt might lead, I hope you’ll join me on Monday, June 29.
Here’s to your personal success,
Professor Marilyn Horowitz
Start Writing Now!
Monday, June 29, 7:00 pm EST
Have you been carrying a story inside you for years but never written the first page?
Or have you started and stopped so many times that even your notebook looks tired?
In this welcoming, hands-on webinar, you will learn simple techniques to quiet the inner critic, let go of perfectionism, and enter a creative state where writing begins to flow more naturally.
One first-time participant said:
“The biggest struggle is getting words from my heart to the paper… and suddenly, I could write.”
You will leave with practical tools to help you connect to your creativity, turn ideas into a story, and begin building a writing practice that feels possible.
Whether you are a brand-new writer or returning to a story you have been longing to tell, this webinar will help you take the next step.
Spaces are limited, so reserve Your Spot for June 29 now!
Substack
Head on over to my Substack if you’d like to join the conversation. It’s a free community where I share thoughts on writing, creativity, personal growth, practical neuroscience, and the questions that keep us curious. I’d love to have you along for the journey.
It sounds obvious. Almost embarrassing to say out loud. But it’s one of those truths that keeps proving itself whether we acknowledge it or not. Writing isn’t just output. It isn’t productivity. It isn’t content. For writers, writing is how we metabolize experience. It’s how we process emotion, organize perception, and make meaning out of the good, the bad, and the relentlessly ordinary.[READ MORE HERE]
Whether you’re learning to write, exploring your own story, or simply looking for a great read, consider my books that offer inspiration for every stage of the journey. From practical guides that have helped thousands of writers discover their voice to fiction and personal growth books that entertain and inspire, there’s a book waiting to meet you where you are today.
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