Writers Workshop: A Creative Prompt for Every Day of May
31 Invitations for Making & Dreaming
Being in my astrology girlie era at this big age was absolutely not on my bingo card but here I am - blaming Mercury retrograde for everything from email typos to emotional outbursts, tracking the Moon like it owes me money and nodding along to everything Co-star and Colin Bedell (@QueerCosmos) post on Instagram.
How the hell did I end up like this?
It started in 2016 (give or take a year or two), I was at a house party in East London. Me, my friend and his then girlfriend (also a friend of mine) were chatting about horoscopes. It was a very tongue in cheek, reasonably cynical conversation until he asked me if I really thought there were only 12 types of people in the world.
I let out an audible gasp, nodded slowly and told him that I thought there might be even less and that I believed I had met them all.
Britney Spears famously said there are “only two types of people in the world” and Friedrich Nietzsche agrees with this idea (albeit for very different reasons). My feelings are not quite as extreme as Spears or Nietsche’s (two names I never thought I’d say in the same breath) but I do think there’s something to all this. What if there aren’t endless, wildly unique souls roaming the earth? What if there are just a handful of templates - a dozen personalities - shuffled and remixed like musical notes? Infinite combinations. Same ingredients.
Since that house party conversation, I’ve paid closer attention to my weekly horoscopes, to the traits I notice in friends, to how strange it is that most of my closest friends are Taureans and how the full moon seems to send everyone wild. Perhaps it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy but… the more I pay attention to it all, the more it makes sense.
Maybe another reason I’ve recently leaned even more into astrology, moon phases and the soft rhythms of cosmic time, is because the world is becoming increasingly unhinged. When the news is a carousel of violence, injustice, corruption and late-stage capitalist madness, there’s something oddly stabilising about knowing the Moon will still wax and wane. That Mercury will retrograde whether I check my emails or not.
It’s not about magical thinking. It’s about meaning-making. Finding rhythm in the chaos. Clinging onto to ancient ideas. Ideas older than empire.
Indigenous communities the world over have tracked stars and moon cycles for centuries - not for Instagram infographics, but for survival, storytelling, agriculture, ceremony. Western culture has taught us to scoff at this. To file it all under “woo woo” whilst glorifying clocks and spreadsheets. But tuning into lunar time, elemental shifts and seasonal slowness is a way of remembering. A small act of decolonising the mind.
I’m not pretending astrology will save us. But in a system designed to disconnect us - from the land, from each other, from ourselves - even a small moment of moonlight attention feels quietly radical.
Creativity has rhythms and so does our energy. If the Moon can move the tides, who’s to say it’s not also nudging my half-finished short story along too?
So, this month, I thought - why not let the Moon co-host the workshop?
Below you’ll find 31 creative prompts, one for each day of the month, gently aligned with the moon phases, the elements, and a few cosmic curveballs (like the infamous Mercury retrograde).
Each section has a different mood. Some days are for dreaming, some for making, some for boldly sharing what you’ve made, and some for letting go.
Why May?
May always feels like a month of thresholds - the last of spring followed by the first hint of summer. A time of beginnings, blooming and changes in the light. It’s the perfect time to start something new so I hope that each of these daily invitations to make, imagine, listen, notice and play inspire the start of something for you. Use them however you like: loosely, literally, backwards, sideways. Some will fit into a pocket of five minutes; others might open the door to a room you will stay inside all day.
These prompts are not just for writers. You’ll find all sorts of stimulus for whatever it is you might want to make and do. So, feel free to share these prompts with your artist friends from different disciplines.
Consider this a creative almanac, a studio companion, a gentle nudge. Follow it daily, weekly, or just when your horoscope says “try something weird.” It’s your month-long workshop. So, do with it what you will. Throw logic out of the window for just a little while and lean into what feels right for you.
The first week is available for all subscribers and paid subscribers can access the full month.
Now, go get your candles and your smudge sticks. Or don’t. Honestly, a biro and a biscuit will do.
31 Invitations for Making & Dreaming: May 2025 Edition
May opens with Mercury retrograde still in motion, which means it’s a powerful time for editing, reviewing, reworking and reflecting. Try not to rush headlong into new things until mid-month. Mercury stations direct on 15th May and you’ll likely feel things begin to move more freely around then.
On 2nd May, Pluto goes retrograde - this is a slower, deeper energy. Think long-term transformation, revision and the excavation of buried ideas. Don’t force clarity. Let the season shape you gently.
The Sun moves from Taurus to Gemini on 21st May, bringing a shift from slow, steady creativity to quick, playful and sociable expression.
We’ll pass through a New Moon in Taurus on 8th May - a gorgeous time for setting grounded creative intentions - and a Full Moon in Sagittarius on 23rd May, full of wild, expansive insight and bold creative sharing.
Let the rhythm guide you. Dip in and out. Let this be an almanac of possibility, not obligation.
🌘 1st - 7th May
Waning Moon → New Moon
A time for quiet preparation, endings, gathering ideas and listening inward.
Mercury is in retrograde until 15th May. Go gently. BACK UP YOUR WORK. Review drafts. Don’t stress over delays or missed connections.
1st May: Tell the Story of a Plant
Pick one of your plants and tell the story of where it came from and what it’s life is like now. What might it think and feel about what goes on around it? What unique perspective might it have on your activities? Is it nostalgic for the place it was plucked from or has it been with you since it was only a seed?
2nd May: Scent Memory
Pluto stations retrograde today.
Smell something that unlocks a memory - a spice, a flower, a dusty jumper - and create from what it returns to you.
3rd May: Write a Tiny Myth
Invent a myth (under 100 words) that explains something small - why puddles reflect the sky or why toast always lands butter-side down. Let yourself be silly.
4th May: Find Five Textures
Collect five textures today with your hands or camera. You can go out into the world or simply find things around the house. Choose one and let it inspire a poem, drawing or story fragment.
5th May: Letters Never Sent
Write a letter you’ll never send to someone. A parent. An ex. A fictional villain. Future you. Six-Year-Old you. Maybe share it here on Substack if you feel moved to.
6th May: Reverse Dreamwork
Instead of recording a dream, imagine your own day to be a dream that belongs to someone else. Pick a person (real or a character) and gift them your dream. How might they interpret it when they wake up? Will fragments of it impact their day? Will they tell a loved one about it?
7th May: Start With a Smudge
Make a random smudge on paper - ink, makeup, pencil. Now turn that smudge into something more.
I cannot count the number of times I’ve done this when doodling at work, a coffee stain spilled on my notebook during a writersroom quickly turning into something funny or beautiful.
🌑 8th - 14th May
Taurus New Moon → Waxing Crescent
A time for grounded beginnings, building habits, tending small ideas.
Taurus New Moon peaks on 8th May - strongest from 7th to 9th May.
Don’t rush. Plant ideas like seeds and let them root slowly.