To move to action. To cause, to bring about. A movement, an action, a feeling. Immediate, done without delay. To set forward, in(to) motion. From promere, “to bring forth.” Pro, “forward,” with emere “to take, distribute.” But also prompte, as in “readiness.” A prompt can be a noun or a verb or an adjective. Anything and everything could be or is a prompt, if only we’d let it be. A word a quote a title a movement a picture a scene a song. Or anything else. A prompt, or to prompt, or just prompt, or promptly. How to write something that can be anything. The infinite things a prompt could be—or already is. A frame around the particular, a productive limitation. An impulse towards. The suggestion of a desire path. A message or symbol on a screen. A system awaiting input. A sum. A deadline for payment. A constraint, a durational limit. Waiting sets in motion. An atmosphere of intention, attention (re)focuses. A word taken distributes. A mood, a mode. The expectation of literary production. A shared going-toward. Directionality condenses energy. To prompt not a prompt. No prompts but in prompting—of being prompted. What matters isn’t so much the prompt as “readiness” to call a word a quote a title a movement a picture a scene a song a prompt. Not writing tomorrow, but writing now—promptly.

I often write towards. Consider what brings you to write. What constitutes your readiness?

Write so that writing writes and unwrites itself.