Writing Prompts

Your great post begins here. Add images and videos to bring your posts to life and hashtags (e.g., *inserthashhere*new, *inserthashhere*followme) to reach new people.

Aside from the *inserthashhere*, which I had to type as I so rudely realised that I don't have a functional hash key on my keyboard, above is what is pre-written in wix's blog entry section before you start typing. I was looking at it just before I started writing this and it got me thinking about writing prompts. As you may or may not no, I've been going through a bit of a slump. Not a sexual one, but rather a long period of writer's block. I'm not exactly sure how it came about, but it kind of snuck up on me sometime after I completed the manuscript for my novel and I think it mostly stems from simply being out of practice. Like a muscle; if you don't use it, you lose it. Every writer goes through a stage of block and ever writer has a different way of dealing with it. Some take drugs, some visit interesting places, some take drugs in interesting places. But some also use writing prompts. Or so I assume. I could be the only one. And even then, I still technically haven't used one yet. Where am I going with this?

Yes, at the start of this entry is an example of what is pre-written before you start writing a blog. And as I've already stated before, I was looking at it and thinking about writing prompts. As I'm sure you already know, writing prompts are designed to get your creative juices flowing by rolling the ball for you and letting you run with it. They all sound something like this: An old man stops you in the street and hands you a letter. From that moment on, your life is turned upside down; or, Look outside your window and write a story based on the weather you see. Super cheesy stuff sometimes. I know, what wix has written at the start isn't so much a writing prompt but rather something explaining what is meant to go here. I just thought it was funny how optimistic it was and thought I'd use it as a writing prompt myself. How do they know my post is going to be great? It could be a huge pile of shitake mushrooms. Anyways, writing prompts. Sometimes I think they're a good idea and sometimes I think they're funny. They are a good idea as writing really is something you should try and do every day if you want to be any good and it can be quite difficult finding something to write about. Hell, I just took something stupid and ran with it and it seems to be working out*. They are funny, though, when you realise it was someone's job to sit around and think of them and I wonder if they ever caught themselves later and thought "crap, that would have been a good idea for my novel, except someone else took it and ran with it better". Not to mention you'd probably get some people who sit around and write prompts like "Look at your pen and write a story about how the ink got in there". Actually, now that I've written that, I've just realised it's not half bad. I think I'm beginning to realise the true potential of writing prompts now that I've been writing for one really long paragraph.

Do you think writing prompt writers get writer's block? And if so, is there like a writer's prompt writer writer's prompt? "A sunflower sits on the windowsill of an old house, in a place where the sun doesn't really shine. Write a prompt instructing someone to write a story about the life of the flower...". What an absurd world we would live in if there really was something like that which existed. It would probably be a world where people would need to read instructions on how to make cereal.

Writing prompts are handy and already I am benefiting from a little thing that wasn't intended to be a writing prompt. Whether or not it is "great" is up to you. It has been a while since I've finished my manuscript and I hardly want to look at it again. A part of me feels like it's not very good and I know it needs some major structural editing, but that is an issue for future me to sort out when my mind is refreshed and I can look at it with some new eyes. You have to try and write every day in order to keep up the enthusiasm and it is very easy to slip out of routine. I have already developed a short attention span for writing on top of my already ADD strength short attention span and I would definitely now recommend a prompt or two to get myself back on track. The beauty of them is that you don't have to write something long if you don't want to. You can literally write something like "Jack left his house on a Friday afternoon, never to return again... because he was dead". Sure it's not real creative genius, but at least you wrote something. And that's the point.

And that, my friends, is also the real point of this blog post.

Thanks for reading. Ciao!