This month I've been doing a daily writing prompt
exercise courtesy of Sherryl Clark's ebooks4writers. I'm on the website’s mailing list so in the
morning the day’s prompts appear in my inbox and I can choose the time to do
them.
The prompts encourage me to do 10 min of
writing every day - more if I want to. There are two sections - fiction and
poetry and you don't have to do both. I have been doing both and have some spectacularly
bad poetry to show for it! Luckily the writing is for my eyes only unless I choose
otherwise.
It's been interesting exercise for a range of
reasons. The first is that while love to write, I can't sit at the computer for
long periods of time. This makes it difficult to stay in a regular writing rhythm
but the prompt exercises, being short, overcome this. Like many writers, I carry a
notebook everywhere and I write by hand. Today I did the prompts while waiting at
the hairdresser. As a result of the impetus the prompts appearing in my inbox
gives me, I have the start of possibly 18 short stories to date. Not all of
them will attract me long-term but they are beginnings and story ideas I would not
have had without the prompts.
The second is that the exercises till the soil
for the rest of my writing. Today I found myself visiting my own slush pile of writing
and looking at which pieces I could work on further. I also found my mind churning
with new ideas. Again not all of them executable but nevertheless they show me that
there is life in my writing yet. If you have a chance to get onto the site, do
so and sign up. It’s not too late to get into it.
I've rediscovered how important it is to exercise
the writing muscle, even if it’s a little each day. That’s how writing gets
stronger.
