I almost never sit down alone at a blank page anymore. Why? It’s hard to invent something out of nothing.

The blank page activates my writer’s amnesia: Who am I? What am I working on? Why am I even writing this? Does any of this matter? Why did I think this project was a good idea? Who do you think you are?

Those sabotaging voices are intense. And draining. And distracting. And wrong.

What’s the antidote? Prompts, a timer, and generative writing.

Prompts inspire and surprise. Prompts occupy the sabotaging part of your mind so you can write freely. Prompts make room and open doors, so your ideas can walk right onto the page.

Sarah Sentilles is a writer, teacher, critical theorist, scholar of religion, and author of many books, including Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn't Ours, a New York Times Editor's Choice and Idaho Book of the Year. Her book Draw Your Weapons won the 2018 PEN-America Award for Creative Nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Oprah Magazine, The Atlantic, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. She earned a bachelor's degree at Yale and master's and doctoral degrees at Harvard. She is the co-founder of The Alliance of Idaho, which protects the human rights of immigrants.