By Jennifer Dunn of  http://coffeeandacloseddoor.blogspot.com

Yesterday I wrote about why I’ve decided to make my own writing prompts, and I described how I planned to do this. You can find out all about it right here.

For a few days prior to posting yesterday, I’d been trying out my method with pretty decent success, but I wasn’t keeping on top of things.

I’d think to myself, “Oh, I need a prompt for tomorrow.” I’d open a book, follow my formula, and if I found what I needed, great. I’d use it. But if I didn’t find what I needed I’d close the book, almost right away. Oh well, I’ll look again later.

This wouldn’t do, however, because I like to think about the prompt throughout the day before I use it the next morning.

So, before daylight today, with my notebook and my coffee and a pile of library books in front of me, I set to work. I felt just like a graduate student again. Only this time I was doing something useful. (Umm… just kidding?)

Anyway, here it is: a list of my new prompts (2nd and 3rd photos below). I’ll be working through them for the next little while.

Before I decided to make my own prompts, I was using prompts I received daily via email from Sarah Selecky, a lovely writer and writing teacher. The prompts are available for free on her website. I’ve styled my own prompts in a way that follows her format because I found her prompts very helpful.

Also, she recommends writing by hand in a notebook. That’s what I do. It took some getting used to, but now I don’t think I’d do it another way. I find there’s less potential, when writing by hand, to get bogged down in editing-while-writing.