For the last four weeks of so, I’ve been practicing a good writing habit. As soon as I get into the office, before I check my emails or agenda for the day, I write for ten whole minutes.

Week one was automatic writing. Lately, I’ve been assigning myself little writing assignments for my ten minutes.

This morning, nearly fresh out of ideas, I turned to Google for a writing prompt. I had NO IDEA how unhelpful the results would be. Here is a sprinkling of the most appalling and least helpful:

1.    Poking fun at you, a relative gives you a dubious award at a family picnic. In a twist, you accept the award and give a short speech. Write the scene.

2.    You are running for president of the writing community. What promises do you make to swing voters in your direction?

3.    When was the last time you saw a coaster? What meaning of the word ‘coaster’ inspires the best memory for you?

While these prompts might meet with some success at a senior center writing seminar, content writers need more meat, more action. If we’re going to spend time writing for ourselves, before we start a day of more writing, certainly we can find a more provocative muse than a coaster, or the prospect of being president of the writing community.

Here’s a prompt from the notebook of yours truly, inspired by my recent fascination with historical fiction.

•    Choose a story from a news source of your choice. (Sparse, AP wire or police blotter stories work the best for me.) Write a scene based on the characters involved in the news story, either leading up to the main event of the story or explaining what happens after the news story comes out.

Do you set aside time to write for yourself? What do you do to get your wheels turning?

—Wendy Joan

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.