Hit 200 writing prompts in my notebook before I realized something

I hit 200 unique writing prompts in my spiral notebook last week. I started keeping track back in March after a dry spell at my local library writing group in Portland. The milestone made me realize I was stockpiling ideas but not actually writing any of them. Has anyone else hit a specific number of prompts saved and realized you're just hoarding inspiration instead of using it?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_charlie6d ago

That hoarding feeling is real, man. 200 prompts is a lot to sit with, and honestly it sounds more like a safety net than a launchpad at this point. Maybe it's just me but I find the best stuff happens when I flip to a random page and force myself to write a bad first paragraph with whatever prompt my finger lands on. The worst that happens is you waste ten minutes, but you might stumble into something that actually sticks.

kim.charlie5d ago

Damn, that's exactly what I needed to hear. I've been sitting on a stack of prompts for months and it's like they just collect dust instead of doing anything useful. Randomly picking one and forcing a bad paragraph actually works, I did that last week and wrote something I actually didn't hate for once.