Writing Prompt: Under the Skin
Each month, we post a writing prompt tied to the current month's essay. Please email your responses of 500 words or less to lmreflections (at) literarymama (dot) com with the word "writing prompt" in the subject line so that we know it's not an essay submission. We will accept responses until the 15th of each month and offer our feedback on each response privately before the end of the month. We hope you'll take this opportunity to get inspired, share your work, and find community with other writers!
In Under the Skin: Lessons in Transformation, Kim Todd writes about researching a 17th century artist’s illustrations of metamorphosis while pregnant herself:
"She captured all the caterpillar gains by its different guises: its mouth is shaped to eat leaves when leaves are plentiful; its mouth disappears when it tucks itself away in a chrysalis; its mouth turns to a long proboscis to suck nectar when it lives the flitting life of a butterfly. The ability to alter, to move from singular to plural and back, is the insect’s greatest strength. It has the flexibility to creep and hide at certain times; to become liquid and immobile; then eventually, like the one that launched itself off the balcony into a gray, Netherlands sky, to soar off on gaudy wings."
Consider the caterpillar changing into a butterfly, the pregnant woman growing a baby, the multitasking mom trying to get her kids out the door. If you could grow a new part of your body to help you write or mother, describe what would it be.