Weekly Writing Boost #1

Get your creative juices flowing with a quick writing burst

I have no idea what this is a photo of but I love it so much. If all else fails you can use it as a prompt. Photo by Darshan Gajara on Unsplash

Today begins a new weekly series, which will feature exercises, prompts, tips and techniques, all designed to give you a boost to your writing week. Activities will cover writing craft, career advice and foundational mindset beliefs, along with anything else I think might be helpful, and you should be able to finish them in 15-20 minutes. A small amount of time to spend with a big pay-off.

My plan is to offer you the boost itself, along with some resources to point you to why it will help you, or give you more information about the technique.

I’ve been helping writers get words on the page in various capacities (writing teacher and workshop leader, book coach, manuscript evaluator, mentor, critique group member and blogger) while writing numerous novels myself. And I like to think I’ve learned a thing or two along the way.

But this is about you, not me, so let’s get going on our first boost.

The boost:

We’ll start out easy this week, with a good old-fashioned prompt. Grab your paper and pen or computer or tablet and let’s go.

Remember, when writing to a prompt you can write as yourself or as a character in one of your stories. Or both. Or someone completely different. Also, you don’t have to slavishly follow the prompt (although you can). Let your pen take you where it wants to go. The key is to keep moving the pen across the page. Don’t stop to ponder, just write.

As a reminder, prompts are useful in many ways. They can be a great warm-up. Or you can use them when you are blocked. You can use prompts to generate new material or to get inspiration for your WIP. Find more information about using them below. But do the writing first.

Ready? Grab your paper and pen or computer or tablet and let’s go. Set a timer for 20 minutes and write to this prompt:

Once upon a time, when we….

Or maybe you’d prefer a picture. Here you go:

Photo by frame harirak on Unsplash

Happy writing! More on prompts below.

More:

—Check out my tumblr blog with hundreds more writing prompts. See the tab in the header above or go here to find the link.

—An article I wrote a few years ago on prompts.

—Another good article on writing to prompts.

I’ll be back next Monday with another boost. And look for a longer post here on Friday.

If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, please feel free to share or subscribe. I write a longer piece about writing on Thursday, sometimes Fridays, so let’s just say the end of the week.I’d love to have you part of the community! Free subscribers have access to all my articles on Substack, while paid subscribers can expect classes, zoom Q and As and more. Eventually, I’ll shift these boost to the paid option, too. I will admit to not being totally ramped up with the paid offerings yet, but they shall appear soon. But in the meantime, if you want a good boost for your writing every week, come back to this space each Monday for more.