Writing Prompts

Today’s WordPress prompt is ‘locked’. Toasted Cheese has this one, “another naked selfie?” Sometimes writing prompts inspire me and sometimes they don’t. So I am looking at the rest of the month’s writing prompts for April. Hmm, here’s one, “There’s always one more thing you need.” I’m trying a new method of brainstorming. I took six dice and tossed them. I got two ones, two sixes, a three and a four. I grouped them in twos, then I got my thesaurus, my dictionary was not immediately in reach – have to fix that. I turned to page four one six, based on the grouping of the first three dice. Then I took the first, third and sixth words, which gave me the words reconnoiter, reconsideration, and reconstruct. My challenge now is to use those three words in a blog. those are perfectly good words, but I can’t think of how to use them in a blog. I can’t even construct a sentence using them, or even one of them. the closest I came was the last sentence when I used the word construct.

As a writing prompt that’s not working well. So I went to the Seventh Sanctum website which has a writing prompt generator. It was entertaining, but not helpful. I mean, what can you do with something like, “I will always be a lady – in time, you will join me.” Then there was, “I’ve got my bracelets – now I’m going to kill her.” Wonder Woman turned rogue? I have writing to do so I leave it. Seventh Sanctum also has a plot twist generator which is also entertaining. I can use that while plotting my novel.

My point here is that you don’t have to stuck for something to write. there are prompts all over the internet. You can make up a game that will get you words to write about, like I did with the dice. There’s a variation of that where you throw five dice, open a random book to a random page and take the words that correspond to the number on the dice and write something that includes them. even if you don’t really get anything usable from these sources, you will be writing something and that is often the way out of a writing block.

Writing prompts are not always obvious. Sometimes you have to think about them and consider them. I have written several starting paragraphs only to abandon the topic. That happens. It’s the exercise that’s important here. You are stretching your writing muscles to write from prompts. Writing prompts aren’t supposed to give you something finished. They are supposed to help you write something – anything – not necessarily something good. They are only meant to get you started. Once the words start flowing, you will often end up with a finished piece, maybe related to the prompt that started you off, but more often it’s something completely different. The trick, when you are blocked, is to start writing and let your writing go where it will. The words will come if you write them.

About pebblepup

I am not one who is comfortable talking about myself but here goes. I enjoy writing, family history, and reading. I decided to do this blog because I wanted to try something new. I decided to make it a weekly blog because I wasn't sure that I could keep up with a daily one, and monthly seemed like I was writing a magazine. I think I did ok with my choices. You'll notice that there are not a lot of graphics on my site. That's because there are graphics plastered everywhere on the Internet and those sites sometimes take forever to load. This blog is a place where you can kick back, relax and be ready to be amused. At least I hope I willbamuse you. This blog is on a variety of subjects from my ficitional cat agency, the FFL, which is monthly, to instructional blogs to editorials, which are my opinions only. I admit that I don't know everything and could be wrong -- I frequently am. Now, stop reading about me and read what I have to say!