Prompts

A Collection of 10min Stories from Writing Prompts

Before joining a writing group, I’ve struggled with inspiration. I started a book when I was 19 and only had a voice for my main character. She is an angsty teen with a rough upbringing and a world, beyond what she could imagine, throws her in a fight for her sanity and life. She has a mouth of a sailor, anger of a beast, and grit of a classic hero even though she struggles to find her strength. She was all I knew in a character and I couldn’t hear any other voice or story but hers. In my poetry, I experienced the complete opposite. I had an abundance of inspiration and when I struggled to think of a poem, I would call up my best friend and we would exchange a random word to write a poem in 15min. I flourished in the variety of poems a could create, some of which derived from a familiar place of hurt, others were completely made up stories and emotion. The point is, it came a lot easier for me. The problem I was facing was transferring the ease of poetry into creating a story.

I had success one month, in a year I can’t remember, when I began a story based on a poem I had written from our word exchange. The poem allowed for me to write 2 chapters of a stand alone book that is vastly different from my first. I was full of excitement that my brain would soon extinguish. By the end of the second chapter, my life seemed to spiral. I was having issues with communicating in my marriage, we changed apartments in the same complex, only the later change states. Financially, things weren’t the greatest and I was overwhelmed with life. The only thing that remained constant in my writing was that strong teenage character from my first book. August of 2019, I finished my second book in the saga of that same character but nothing was happening with my stand alone book.

The beginning of 2020 was the time for me to switch things up. I had been looking for groups to join since moving to the west coast in March but never made the time to join. Here I was, officially in the new year and still looking at the same writing group I found months prior. I hyped myself up to join, talking about it with friends, family and my spouse. On a Tuesday, I found a seat amongst of various writers, some published, some not, and some had more books published that almost intimidated me. Almost. This is where I was thrown into the deep end of prompt writing. Had I made the connection between it and my word exchange game with my friend, I would have known that I was capable of doing it all along. Ever since that first meeting, I’ve been tapping into lots of different characters in my head. I was pleased to meet the man I started writing in my stand alone book again. Whether the writing is good or bad, I’m compiling each writing prompt and posting it. Some will show up in a book or two, others will remain unused. The point is, I now know I’m a crazy person, meeting random people in my head, praying that it is normal for an author.