So, today I decided to get my other blog going again. It’s at Writing.com, and I just use a random prompt that I find anywhere on the Internet, and I write about it for 10 minutes. Whatever comes out, I post it. Those are the rules – no editing, no caring what I’ve written – just write for 10 minutes and post.
I decided to look around on the Internet and get some new prompts. The group where I’ve gotten my prompts for a long time re-uses the same prompts each year. Now, that’s not all that bad. You can see where your mindset was from one year to the next – you will definitely write something completely different. But, I wanted to see what was out there.
I realized that writing prompts sometimes make me feel a bit dumb. I see a prompt and suddenly all of these ideas come to me. Then I wonder – why couldn’t I just write that to begin with? Why didn’t I think of that? It’s weird. I know that this is why writing prompts exist… to spur your imagination, your muse, whatever you’d like to call it…. but it does make you feel a bit daft at times. It was right there all the time, and I couldn’t see it. A great story was ready to be written and I didn’t acknowledge it. Weird. When you write a lot, you think you are fairly creative – at least that’s what I think. But then you realize there was a story begging to be told, and you didn’t even see it.
Don’t get my wrong. I love writing prompts. They are the best thing to spark my muse – but they do make me feel as though I should have already been writing a story once one comes about from any given prompt.
Again, the reason prompts exist is for those of us writers, like myself, who cannot see the forest for the trees (how terribly cliché, I know). All I can say is that the person who “invented” writing prompts is to be commended highly… and if that person is not already a millionaire, he/she should be!
That’s all for tonight, my friends.
Write more, and write more often!
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