Three Six Five: Prompts, Acts, Divinations (An Inexhaustible Compendium for Writing) by Lucy Ives

Three Six Five: Prompts, Acts, Divinations (An Inexhaustible Compendium for Writing) by celebrated novelist, poet, and critic Lucy Ives is a radical reimagining of the traditional creative writing guide.

Published by Siglio Press in May 2026, this beautifully bound 416-page hardcover features striking artwork by artist Nick Mauss. Rather than offering rigid rules or instructional formulas for crafting mainstream narratives, the book operates as an expansive, conceptual ars poetica designed to shift how creators observe, think, and interact with the world.

At its core, the compendium is an exploration of process over production. Drawing direct inspiration from experimental landmarks like Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit and Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, Ives provides a daily creative architecture that frequently takes the writer off the page.

Many of the prompts operate as thought experiments, intentional paradoxes, or physical constraints. For instance, one prompt instructs the creator to walk ten miles to write only five words, while another demands a 10,000-word essay for a simple trip across a room. By making it nearly impossible to complete the exercises "correctly," Ives cleverly strips away the paralyzing anxiety of perfectionism. Writers are forced to embrace memory gaps, environmental distractions, and the beautiful mess of cognitive limitations.

The book is structured to encourage profound mindfulness, making it an enduring resource not just for aspiring novelists or poets, but for anyone looking to cultivate a sharper sense of curiosity. It treats writing not as a commercial career track, but as an ongoing, playful act of divination and survival. By reframing creative blocks as invitations to play, Three Six Five serves as an inexhaustible, life-long reservoir of inspiration that expands the boundaries of what literature can be.

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Comment by 葉子正绿 38 minutes ago: Lucy Ives Offers a Few Creative Prompts to Knock You Off Kilter——On Writing Without Measurement

(Lucy IvesMay 15, 2026 Via The Craft of Writing)

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here.

I write prompts in the way someone else might write poems, micro-fictions, philosophical aphorisms, or other very small items of literature. Some of my prompts seem like paradoxical jokes: walk ten miles and write five words, or go across the room and write 10,000 words. But they are serious refutations of certain received ideas; they are about seeing how broader social measurements regarding what matters can be wildly inaccurate.

For example, we tend to think of a single sentence as inconsequential. Like, who cares? But if you have the experience of taking a long walk and writing a sentence, and you feel satisfaction, you might see how that sentence is amazing, how it’s totally worth it to walk ten miles to find it. By the same token, what if you went across your room and that act generated thousands of words? What does that tell you about just being present in your room?

How can this be? It’s a relief to realize that something we ostensibly don’t care about, or don’t notice, is a precious resource. These prompts might knock you off kilter and help you uncover something whose value can’t be measured and has nothing to do with measurement.

exercise for escapists
Choose a topic.

Now write a very short essay or poem about a very short essay or poem you will write on this topic.

Explain what the very short essay or poem on the topic will be about, what it will consist of—name the chapters and styles you will employ, words and metaphors, subject matter, arguments, interpretations the reader will certainly arrive at, and so on. Use the space of the very short essay or poem to exhaustively detail the very short essay or poem you will write on the topic.

Whatever you do, do not actually write the very short essay or poem on the topic. Write only the very short essay or poem on the very short essay or poem on the topic.

exercise for destruction of boredom

Give a friend, acquaintance, or neighbor an unexpected gift. Let the gift be as small and inexpensive as possible (free, if you can swing it). Document what takes place. Begin a diary of gifts you give and receive.

exercise for habitation

This is a versatile exercise, one that may be used both for creating new texts and for revising preexisting descriptions and narratives. If starting from scratch, see how far you can take this act of recollection.

The process:

1. Think of a room, vehicle, item of furniture, backpack, or other relatively intimate container that you no longer possess or have access to.

2. Now consider a compartment or small enclosure inside it—drawer, closet, corner, pocket.

3. Using your memory and/or imagination, make a detailed inventory of the possible contents of this small enclosure. Do your best to make this inventory as accurate as possible, (re) creating the space and feelings it evokes.

4. From your inventory, select one item that seems in some way charged, full, or otherwise significant.

5. Write the “life story” of this item—where it came from, how it came to you and why, what purpose it served, where it went, and what the future holds for it.

Adapted excerpt from three six five: prompts, acts, divinations(an inexhaustible compendium for writing) by Lucy Ives, with drawings by Nick Mauss, published by siglio, 2026。