First newsletter of 2025
Weekly writing prompt #145
Welcome to your first issue of Now Go Write (formerly known as Creative Juice 🥲) for 2025 now sent to you via Substack. Aside from the platform and name switch, this newsletter’s core purpose remains: support writers in building a consistent practice through weekly prompts.
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Last week, I graduated with my MFA. It was my final in-person residency and the program’s first at CalArts, our new partner school in Valencia, CA. The residency started as they always do: an anticipatory spark in the air, a giddiness over reuniting with familiar faces. However, a looming sense of unease soon crept in as the various Los Angeles fires started to burn not far from us.
By the fifth night, our phones began to sound with emergency alerts. The Hurst fire had sprung up 8 miles away from our AirBnb. Our zone’s status remained normal while those adjacent to us had been ordered to prepare for evacuation. Out of caution, in case the fire spread upward, we packed up our suitcases and stayed a night in some hotels north of campus.
During workshop, I paid half a mind to my critiques while obsessively refreshing my browser for fire updates. One lecture by a visiting author even got interrupted twice by the surround-sound blare of our phone alerts going off in unison. In the end, we were fine, and programming pressed on as planned. We were lucky the Hurst fire was one of the quickest to be contained. A few canceled flights here and there but nothing compared to those who’ve lost everything. It felt surreal—and almost not right—to graduate and celebrate, against the backdrop of a burning L.A.
I often fear that this is just how life is going to be. That we’re all stuck on the tightrope now, trying to eke out balance (and joy! pleasure! rest!) in our lives in the face of ever-present calamity. I try hard to curb my resentment that this is the world we’re inheriting. To shift my attitude when I ask myself, “What is this all for?” from a place of bitter resignation to one of spiritual surrender, in which destruction-creation are twin forces.
As I write this, the world is mourning the death of David Lynch. I saw my first Lynch film only a few years ago, but I’ve been captivated by what I’ve seen since. His work is fucking weird, but in a way that feels refreshing and uncommon. What sort of world could we dream up and inhabit if we didn’t shy away from our naked creativity? It’s a question I plan to hold close now that I’ve left the MFA nest.
To end, I’m sharing this apt quote from Twin Peaks: “Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see, one chance out between two worlds, fire walk with me!”
Now go write,
Jamie
📝 This week’s writing prompt
Who would you be and what kind of world would you inhabit if you fully lived in your creative truth? What would life look like? What would you create?Reply to this email to submit your writing. Share by Saturday evening and see what everyone else wrote for the same prompt.
✨ Writing inspo of the week
“Absurdity is what I like most in life.” — David Lynch
Congrats on graduation! Love the Lynch quote;)
Congrats on graduating - it was fun to share a workshop with you.