A Little Prompting

I have a new love. In all my years of writing I have never used writing prompts. Well, that's not entirely true. If I think really hard, I can remember my 9th grade English teacher Miss Roberts (huge difference maker in my life!) conducting writing activities in which we were given a topic and needed to write on it for the remainder of class. I don't remember how well I responded to them at that time and I know she didn't make use of them often. So, let's focus on the present.

In January, I finally joined a writers' group for the first time. Oh, how I wish I had done this years ago! We meet once a month and share our writing projects. For the last half hour of the meeting, we use a writing prompt provided by one of the members. We write for only five minutes then share what we created. Plain and simple, it's my new favorite thing.

The prompts provide an itty bitty nugget of an idea. A start. A seed. When I read or hear the prompt, it's a thrill to know that in that moment there is no telling where I will go with it and yet in merely a few minutes I'll have formed a fuller concept and put words to the page. Each time it feels like I am being introduced to myself anew. Sometimes the result is tepid but other times I stare at the lines I wrote and wonder, "Where inside of me did that come from?"

This being the case, and the other case being that I have desired a return to blogging but have inexplicably struggled with writer's block each time I open a blank post, I shall make use of writing prompts here on the blog. My hope is that it will be fun and interesting, and will continue to break out the writer inside of me. I am excited to meet her each and every time.