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Why does nobody tell you to write throwaway prompts just to unstick yourself
Last week I sat down to work on my short story collection and completely froze up. I had a list of 30 prompts saved in a Google doc and every single one felt like homework. So I closed the doc, opened a blank page, and wrote a prompt that was literally just "a guy loses his keys at a gas station in Toledo." Wrote 400 words of garbage in 20 minutes. Then I did three more throwaway prompts the same way. Here is the weird part, prompt number three turned into something I actually want to keep working on. I think the problem was I kept treating every prompt like it had to produce a finished piece. When I gave myself permission to write junk, the good stuff snuck in through the back door. Now I start every session with one throwaway prompt before I touch my real project. Does anyone else do this or am I just tricking myself into writing?
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riverowens8d ago
Ever tried setting a timer for ten minutes and just writing whatever comes out with zero plan? That's basically the same trick, and it works because your brain stops guarding the door and lets the messy stuff through. The junk prompts are not a waste, they're warm up laps before the real race, and sometimes one of them surprises you. Keep doing it, you're not fooling yourself, you're just finally writing.
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