Write Your Eulogy: The Prompt That Changes Everything

Medium Day 2025 Speaker Session Recap

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

If you weren’t able to make it to my Medium Day 2025: Just Start Writing session, I am very disappointed in you. Naw, not really.

But you definitely missed being a part of the 44 attendees who stayed from start to finish and interacted with an unconventional prompt. Not to mention the gift they received at the end.

The good news is, I’m not a gatekeeper, and after seeing the 16 downloads for the free PDF, it is only right that I give you a synopsis of what our conversation was about.

This recap will discuss the three Core Elements in a eulogy that are used to create the Reverse Eulogy Prompt.

I’ll also explain how this form of writing gets you writing with transformative clarity. I’ll share my personal eulogy, you’ll get to practice the prompt, and there’s a gift waiting for you at the end too.

I Am Dead

Before I tell you about the Reverse Eulogy Prompt, the best way to set your expectations up is that you know I am dead.

Yep, before using the prompt, I tell myself I am dead already. Gone from this world.

This is the perfect remedy for the worries we writers carry about judgment, rejection, laughter, or silence from readers.

A vanished soul does not suffer from these insecurities, so you can express yourself freely.

Who Am I?

Now that we have gotten the insecurities out of the way.

I’m sorry you missed the live session on “Write Your Eulogy: The Prompt That Changes Everything.” I am Latoya Campbell, a poet, solo traveller, and a four-time self-published author.

Originally from Jamaica, I’ve spent the last seven years adventuring and working in the Caribbean, North America and South America: from bustling tourist hubs to quiet, car-free islands, to the mountains of the Andes.

I want to take you to one of the quietest, a little odd and most transformative places I’ve ever visited: a cemetery.

Come With Me To The Cemetery

I know, that’s not where most people go for inspiration. But it might be exactly where your writing needs to begin, at the end.

Imagine you are in a well-kept cemetery (during the appropriate visiting hours).

The sun is playing hide-and-seek behind the cumulus clouds.

The manicured grass welcomes you with your blanket, notebook, pen, a bottle of water, snacks, and maybe some lunch. You inhale deeply all of Mother Nature’s earthy presence. Hear the choir of birds tweet and chirp as rustling tree leaves shake in the cool breeze.

Your eyes wander over the sea of headstones, each one a different story, a life completed, a legacy left behind.

Quiet.

Peaceful.

Alone.

You exhale. Pen in hand, and your mind is ready to write.

This is the feeling the prompt we are going to talk about gives you, especially when done in this setting.

Solo cemetery picnic at Woodland Cemetery by Latoya Campbell

The Pull to Cemeteries

Back in Jamaica, I always had a strange pull when driving past cemeteries. But ours weren’t safe. They were overgrown, sometimes occupied by what we called ‘madman’ (homeless people), so I never entered unless it was for a funeral.

Funerals are to Jamaica as weddings are to India. Not in the bad sense, they are huge events of celebration, we see it as a home-going for our loved ones and a party for the living.

The cemetery curiosity stayed with me until my travels abroad, where I finally got the opportunity.

I got to sit under trees, sway to birds singing and admire the uniquely designed monuments from the 1600s, 1800s, decades and centuries long gone.

While I felt the blood flowing in the present, as the departed lay at my feet. My mind was overcome with poems, stories and questions about these humans. Being there made me wonder about my own mortality.

Surrounded by the finality of other people’s lives made me ask: What would I want said about me if I were gone today?

The Spark of the Eulogy Prompt

That question became real when I saw an episode of A Different World, where a professor asked the students to write their own eulogy.

I paused the TV, grabbed my pen, and attempted to write my own. The task seemed heavy. Then the idea came, why not do the exercise in the cemetery?

The idea slowly transformed into both a soulful ritual and a serene picnic.

It wasn’t about death. It was about clarity. What I regretted. What I hoped. What I wanted to be remembered for.

Writing your own eulogy clears the fog. It gets you to overcome fear, procrastination, and the noise of daily life. It helps you to Just Start Writing.

What Is a Eulogy?

The word 'eulogy' comes from the Greek eulogium, meaning 'good word' or 'praise.'

For centuries, it’s been a way to honour lives by highlighting achievements, character, and the impact a person had on others. Eulogies weren’t originally just for funerals. They were used in public recognition, literary dedications, a celebration of life and contributions.

Later, during the Renaissance, they focused on reflection and remembrance.

The original essence will be used in the prompt as you write a eulogy for your future self.

This is a two-fold prompt:

1. Get unstuck to start writing: Face the concept of your own death to silence the inner critic, procrastination, and perfectionism, dissolving fear.

2. Gain clarity on your life: Unearth your values and your desires, realising that your surface self lives for others like family, society, and work. Meet your future self with the intrinsic truth of who you really want to be and what you want to achieve.

I will admit that I didn’t expect forty-seven people to join the session. I prayed for at the very least ten, because I know people get spooked by death, it’s like the superstition of crossing a black cat. So when forty-four beautiful souls decided to stay, they took a brave step.

Similarly, you’re here reading this after seeing the title. That means you are among the courageous and are ready for something different.

Being face-to-face with the Grim Reaper, fake or not, shows that you can do anything, like start writing and publishing.

Sure, the market is saturated, but so are cemeteries, and people are still dying, so you should keep writing. (A bit of dark humour, but you get the point.)

Let’s talk about the three elements of the Reverse Eulogy Prompt.

The Reverse Eulogy Prompt Framework

The Reverse Eulogy Prompt consists of three core elements: Legacy, Relationships and Fulfilment.

• Legacy (Career-focused)
  What meaningful work did you do? What did you build, create, or leave behind that made you proud?

• Relationships
  Who did you love, and how did they experience that love? What kind of friend, partner, or parent were you?

• Fulfilment (Passion-focused)
  What adventures, hobbies, and joys defined your life? How did you live authentically and fully?

This framework keeps the eulogies short, powerful, clarifying and deeply personal. Let’s look at an example of my eulogy using the 3 Core Elements.

Example Self-Eulogy

On October 18, 2105, at the age of 80, Latoya Sharon Campbell, affectionately called Toya, completed her lifelong goal: to travel the world. From her Jamaican rooftop in Portmore, she stared at the stars, longing for freedom, which she found mapped across 70 different countries around the world. After her 70th country, she finally took root in the mountainside of Italy, then later created Camteng Foundation. It helped financially disadvantaged teenage girls from the Caribbean to travel overseas for a culturally immersive summer program. There, they would visit museums, taste new cuisines, learn another language and gain necessary skillsets to ensure they had a brighter future sooner than later. On her 50th trip, she met Jang, her supportive life partner, and father of Victoria and Jang Jr. Motherhood became the gift she never expected due to the diagnosis of Endometriosis. She was a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, a creator of screenplays, Grammy-winning songs, and Broadway shows. A true Renaissance woman. My grandmother joked that her only regret was that when she was in Primary School, she joined the Key Club because of a boy she liked instead of the Dance Club. She said if she didn’t, she could have been a triple threat, singer, dancer and actress. With this, she taught me that regrets don’t define us. She would say, "If you have no regrets, you are a perfect human. And if you sulk in regret, you are a sad human. One doesn't exist, and the other is the worst type of existence." Today, we remember her spirit, her legacy of freedom, and her gift of daring to dream and re-dream despite life's many challenges.

Readers: It’s Your Turn

At this juncture, attendees were invited to write their own eulogy using the Reverse Eulogy Prompt for their 80+ or their centenarian future self.

Now it’s your turn.

Prompt Instructions:

• Set 5 minutes on your stopwatch to write your reverse eulogy.

• Write 10–15 lines max. Let the first draft be raw; it doesn’t need to be polished.

• Use the three Core Elements: Legacy, Relationships, Fulfilment above

• Let your mind wander about regrets, joys, wild dreams, and unheard truths

Take a deep breath. Imagine you’re at the end of a long, meaningful life and write the beginning of your own reverse eulogy.

P.S. I use Kenny G — Forever In Love as background music, see if that’s your jam.

Reminder: Legacy is a career. Relationships are connections. Fulfilment is passion.

One of the reasons we get stuck in writing and publishing is that we’re trying so hard to impress rather than express. I created this design as a print for mugs, stickers and more, specifically for writers to remind us of what is really important. Take a look at the available options at my POD Store

Thank You Bernadette and Margaret

Due to the time constraint, I was only able to open the session up for two volunteers to share their eulogy. Both Margaret and Bernadete were brilliant and brave.

I wished I were more versed with Zoom so I could have saved their full name and medium handle before ending the webinar. Ladies, if by chance you see this post, thank you again for participating and sharing yourself with all of us. You were naturals.

I now invite you, readers, to do the same.

Feel free to share in the comment section a snippet of your eulogy.
Again, it is not supposed to be perfect, refined, or whatever other adjective you want to use to stop you.

Remember, we’re already dead, so who cares what anyone has to say about it? I’d love to read them all.

Final Thoughts

Now that you have seen the future, wouldn’t you want to be that person?

So, what did we do here? We wrote not about death, but about life.

Writing your own eulogy is a way of telling fear, procrastination, and doubt: You don’t own me.

It’s a way to name your desires, anchor them to reality, and start writing now, not later. And if you can face death on the page, you can face anything.

Time for your gift!

All attendees got free access to an extended version of the Reverse Eulogy Prompt in a 7-page PDF. I left it open to pay what you want, starting at $0+.
Thank you to everyone who downloaded their copy and to those who paid much more.

To celebrate the success of the Write Your Eulogy: The Prompt That Changes Everything session, the downloadable prompt will remain free until Monday morning, September 22nd.

Download The Reverse Eulogy Prompt here.

Once again, I am grateful to each and every attendee of the session and for the opportunity to be in the same league as so many incredible speakers.

A special thanks to the Medium Staff for selecting my topic and for all the assistance with the preparation and technical issues.

I hope that you will use the prompt for your personal, group or workshop to inspire writing now and stop hoarding your words in your mind.

Until next time. Keep writing and publishing your dreams.

This piece is taken from my online writing portfolio on Medium.com and cross-shared to the Substack community.