I enjoy writing from prompts and creating them as “stream of consciousness” writings to work with and mold later. I do this type of writing using many different mediums as inspiration – photographs, words, tarot cards, song titles, movie titles, etc. I then, at a later date take these “sparks” that end up being about 250 words each and flesh them out into more fully-developed outlines, and eventually into fully-realized stories, either short stories or novel-length.
Sometimes these “stream of consciousness” writings bring me a fuller understanding of a story I’m already working on, perhaps giving me some character insight or world insight. Or they could evolve into fresh story ideas. I’ve developed this “stream of consciousness” writing into a ritual that I do each morning. I look at it as “warm-up” exercises to get my brain engaged in the creative writing mode for any given day. And if it’s going to be a busy day, perhaps it being the only writing I get done that day, it is something more than nothing. And as we know, we can’t edit a blank page, thus at least 250 words is something to work with later.
I’ve begun to create several of my 6-word prompts each week. I’m afraid they’re all a bit dark, but I like writing dark. Anyway, I like prompts, they spark ideas for stories, and I like designing and working with images for them. I do a lot of photography myself, so I’m starting to use less stock images, and more of my own images. But that also gives me a different eye to viewing when I’m out photographing, as I consider what images I might photograph and refine to use with these prompts.
I have enough prompts now to start thinking about creating a collection of prompts. So, I’ve started designing them with that in mind as I move forward. I thought I’d share this one. I’ll try to share one or two a week just to throw out some inspiration and something different to work with that others might enjoy as well.

Maybe this will spark something intriguing for you, or maybe it will be another one that I post. Right-click and “save as” if you would like.

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