Writing Prompts

It’s been about a year since I’ve regularly written Flash Fictions for this website, and with my book continuing forward progress, I’ve reached a point where I want to resume that practice. My basic idea is to bring some traffic back to this site, however little it may be, and maybe acquire a fan or two before self-publishing (something I hope to do before the year ends). The problem is that every time I sit myself down to do a Flash Fiction, my brain says no.

No.

It’s part laziness, I know. I’d love to toss in the WB towel, but I believe that writer’s block is an obstacle that can be overcome with brute force and elbow grease. Then again, it’s possible (although unlikely) that I’ve never suffered from it. Either way, the interest in Flash Fiction is no longer there. The switch is off, and the few times I’ve toggled it, no lights have come on.

So I’m going to try something different.

Anyone floating about in the blog-o-sphere is aware of the website called Reddit, and if you’ve been there, you’re also aware of the many subreddits that exist. One subreddit is called Writing Prompts, and it’s function is very simple. Someone comes up with the basis for a story, and people respond to it.

Way back in the AOL days, I used to hang out in various chat rooms that acted in a similar way, mostly chat rooms relating to poetry. Someone would tag you, give you a title, and you wrote a poem right then and there, on the fly, with no editing possible. Most poems were shit, but it didn’t matter. It was fun, and I met some wonderful people.

Given my lack of interest in Flash Fiction, my desire to attract traffic back to a dead site, and my history for the old school AOL poetry chat rooms, I think Writing Prompts is a reasonable direction for me to take. I’ll post there using my real name (which scares the living fuck out of me, honestly, but I better get used to putting my name out there if I intend to self-publish), and then I’ll bring the result of the writing prompt home—here—and post it again for those that don’t visit Reddit or want to filter around looking for something I wrote.

We’ll see how it goes.