In my opinion, there are two main reasons to do writing prompts: either you are exercising your writing muscles to make them stronger, or you are creating new content to publish. Both are valid reasons to make writing prompts a regular practice.
Here are some of my own writing prompts, books that can inspire you, and links to other resources to help you keep writing every day.
Some prompts, inspiration, and ideas:
When I see interesting tweets, I share them with the #writingprompts hashtag. On Twitter, search “writingprompt from:thekimbongiorno” and sort the results by “latest.”
WRITING PROMPTS & WORKBOOKS
Whether you have a specific project in mind, want quick ideas, or find feelings to be a great jumping-off point, these could suit your needs.
INSPIRATION & EDUCATION
The best of the best. Every writer should have these in print.
OTHER WRITING PROMPTS
There are countless resources for writing prompts. Here is a selection I have found useful:
- Storystorm by Tara Lazar (here’s a great example of one day’s prompt)
- Story a Month Challenge with Susan Dennard
- Writer’s Digest writing prompt bootcamp
- Think Written list of 365 writing prompts
- Writer Igniter’s shuffling prompts rock so much
- Poets & Writers has a few weekly writing prompts in an ongoing series
- 180 prompts here on Tumblr
- Tumblr’s Awesome Writing Prompts
- The New York Times has a list of 500 prompts for personal essays
- 31 days of writing prompts by TheBarefootWriter
- Pinterest: follow writing boards like mine, or just search “writing prompt”
ON THE TOPIC OF PINTEREST
I believe writers should have a Pinterest account with two specific boards on it. The first is where you pin everything you’ve published (like this). This makes it easy to access and share your work. The second is a place for you to save posts you find about writing, whether they are prompts, books, advice, interviews with authors, or other resources.
There is also an option to have private/secret boards. If you are working on a new project, you can collect materials and pin them to this so as to refer back to it all in one place at any time. Name it the working title of your project, then pin images, research, comps, and the like to that board, whether you find them on Pinterest or elsewhere on the web. I find this a very handy tool for writing books.
Kim Bongiorno is a freelance writer, New York Times Bestselling author, and the blogger behind Let Me Start By Saying. She writes every single day and thinks you should, too.
KIM BONGIORNO 