I’ll try to be brief in my explanation, but I’m pretty terrible at brief (today’s prompt is near the bottom if “brief” is just too long). In the past, I have really enjoyed the times that I am able to do more than just post my daily writing check-ins. With 15 years of writing experience, I’m no professional, but I know I have advice to offer. I do have some new ideas for a couple of posts in my old “Write Every Day” series of posts, but I’d like to do something regular, and those posts have never really been regular (plus it’s been almost 4 years since I last posted one).

I’m starting this series of posts on Wednesdays that I will call “Writing Wednesday.” I will post something that might help others in their pursuit of writing. Now and then, this will be a post with some sort of thoughts or advice about writing. Most often, the post will simply be some kind of prompt.

Recently I have remembered how fun and helpful it can be to do some writing practice on a semi-regular basis, no matter what stage of working on a book/story/whatever I might be on. Writing practice for me usually entails starting with some kind of prompt and writing anywhere from 50 to 500 words (or more if I’m really into it) based on it. Whether the writing is directly related to the prompt, or just inspired by it, the trick is just to see what comes out.

I really enjoy doing this as often as I can, especially when I’m waist-deep in revision, but it’s really helpful any time I’m not actively writing, and instead am working on another stage of writing. Thus, I want to share prompts that have inspired me, or some of my own.

These might be single-word prompts, phrases, sentences, questions, word lists, or even visual prompts (or whatever else I may come up with). You can write from your own perspective, from the perspective of a character in a story of yours, or make up something completely unrelated to anything you’ve created. There may be specific directions that go with the prompt, to draw out the ideas, but you can always dismiss those and just go with whatever the prompt inspires. There are no rules in writing practice.

I’ll start with a prompt that has become a classic to me, one that inspired a scene I loved. Here’s the first Writing Wednesday Prompt:

You encounter an omnipotent being who says they will answer any one question.

If you write something from this prompt that you want to share, by all means let me know! And if you have any favorite prompts (or prompt collections) of your own, feel free to share!