Writing prompts

I love writing prompts. Sometimes a word or a sentence is enough to inspire me to write a flash. Most prompts that I find on-line are too specific. A recent example of a prompt I googled for? Write 10 things you like to do on a rainy day and journal about one of them for 15 minutes. Or, Place two football players in a museum and add a broken glass.


I prefer open-ended prompts. Last week I asked my friend Matt Maxwell to email me a sentence from the nearest book he could reach. He was at work with only manuals around. ALWAYS stay away from tanks engulfed by fire, he wrote. I loved it! This prompt was what I needed to write chapter two of my novel. No, my chapter is not about tanks, and even not about fires. It is about trying not to do something, and yet doing it anyway.


If very specific prompts are your cup of tea, I found them here. If you like open-ended ones, you'll be able to find one or two in the top right corner of my blog.