Jan 8, 2014 / Beginner

Making Writing Prompts Personal

Every blogger faces it, sooner or later: you feel an itch to publish. You haven’t updated your site in a while. You put on your lucky writing socks, fire up WordPress, flex your fingers, and…

… sit there, staring blankly at the screen. You’re blocked!

(What? Like I’m the only one who has lucky writing socks.)

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When you’re blocked, writing prompts are blogsavers. Many bloggers shy away from them because they don’t like the idea of  responding to a prompt — what if it doesn’t inspire you? What if the topic doesn’t fit your blog? But before turning off the computer and putting your writing socks back in the drawer, try these six tips for making any writing prompt your own:

lost sock

Loss of a lucky writing sock is one of the most common but undiagnosed causes of Writers’ Block. (Photo by Soren herskind, CC BY-2.0.)

A prompt is not an assignment.

Prompts are there to give you a push on days when the words get stuck. They’re not assignments, they’re not requirements, and you don’t need to follow them to the letter. Prompts are there to serve you, and you can use them however you’d like.

Take this (terrible) prompt: Two plus two equals four: yes or no? Sure, you could just answer the question. You also could write about why you love math, rant about why you hate solar calculators, or tell a story about how you met your best friend in 9th-grade algebra. None of those posts answer the question; all of those posts respond to the prompt.

Stop being judgey.

We constantly judge our own ideas, and “I have nothing to write about” is often shorthand for “I think all my post ideas are too stupid to publish.” As we’ve said before:

You read blogs because you’re drawn to the personalities behind them, and that’s why others read yours. If you publish something that’s a real reflection of you — whether it’s an in-depth analysis of a political issue or a series of haiku about your bicycle — your fans will read and like it. Give yourself some credit — people like you, they really do.

Think your response to the prompt is unworthy because it’s not new or original? If it comes from you — in your voice, from your perspective — it’s original. Cut yourself some slack.

Be the anti-prompter.

Maybe your immediate reaction to the prompt was, “ugh, what a dumb prompt,” or “I’d never write about that.”

Great! Now you’ve got something to write about. Tell us why yet another prompt about Miley Cyrus really points to the downfall of culture (or of prompt-writers), or why you will never write about work on your fantasy football blog.

Go with your gut.

If the first thought you had when you read the prompt was something other than, “no, thanks,” run with that, even if it’s completely unrelated to the prompt. (Inspiration, not assignment, remember?) Think about what you’d say if a friend called you and asked you the prompt question — how would that conversation start, and where would it go?

The prompt’s job is to help stoke your creative fires. It doesn’t really matter what your reaction was; it just matters that you had a reaction. Spend a few minutes meditating on that first thought. Maybe the prompt asked you about a favorite meal, and you reaction was, “crap, I forgot to stop at the grocery store.” There are lots of posts in there: posts about mealtime, housework, organizing your life, and more. (Especially once you stop being judgey!)

Read first.

Pingbacks to bloggers’ responses begin appearing on each of our Daily Prompts fairly soon after the prompt is published. If you’re on the fence with the prompt, read a few. Other bloggers’ words and images are often our greatest source of inspiration. Even if you end up simply reading and commenting, and not writing your own post, you’ve made a contribution to fabric of the blogging community.

Be a mind reader (really).

Sometimes, a prompt is just a tossed-off idea, but often, the person writing the prompt has some idea of the kinds of things s/he would like to see it inspire.

Play mind-reader: what do you think the prompt author wanted you to think about? Did s/he succeed? Do you have something to say about that topic? Okay, the prompt author might not have actually been thinking about larger questions of libertarianism v. social democracy when she wrote the prompt asking if you get along with your neighbors… but maybe she was.

When you’re casting around for something to write about, don’t immediately dismiss writing prompts. If you’re willing to spend a few minutes following a prompt down the rabbit hole, you can come out the other side with a post that perfectly fits you and your blog.

Do you ever write in response to prompts? How do you interpret them? Share!

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  2. Ill admit I normally take the prompt at face value and either have inspiration or I don’t. But ill try to look at them in a different light now thought. I normally disabled ping backs on my entries though or I seem to get inundated with every person that decides to include the entire list of entrants on their own post and all i have to show under comments is a mish-match of pingbacks.

    Liked by 2 people

  3. Completely happy to know that you don’t have to treat prompts like The Daily Prompt as assignments or requirements! I started a fiction-poetry blog a few months ago using the Daily Prompt as a starting point.

    Bonus! The Daily Prompt also includes a separate prompt for poets and photographers! – I often use that alternate prompt for my fiction.

    I’d been feeling semi-guilty about not responding directly to the prompts. Thanks for a great article.

    Liked by 3 people

  5. I have frequently posted photos in response to the daily prompts and then have fun writing a couple paragraphs explaining how my mind connects the photo with the prompt. In this way I can go with my creativity with photography and writing. I am always amazed that you and the team can come up with such unique prompts day after day.

    Liked by 3 people

  7. I learned how to enjoy prompts from an online class with Cynthia Morris, (originalimpulse.com) where I finally saw them as just a light switch flipping on my inner light to go with whatever flowed out of the pen. It helps that we do free writing, no stopping and thinking. Not allowed. I suppose if I did that, it wouldn’t work. But enjoy how it wakes up my “sub,” or what I would call “sleeping” consciousness!

    Liked by 3 people

  9. Once, at a drama workshop in 1990. The prompt was ‘He’s a writer.’ The teacher had asked if anyone could write a short play, then came the prompt,them came the question ‘Can you have something for us next week?’ I wasn’t a writer, but faced with the prospect of never going outside again, which I gave some serious thought to, I wrote a twenty minute play called The Trial of the Living Dead. It was a trial/gameshow about a reanimated corpse on trial for his life for not paying his poll-tax (a tax introduced by maggie tatcher, there were riots over it).

    And thus did I invent reality television.

    If only I’d thought of that at the time.

    Liked by 3 people

  11. Since I started blogging 2 months ago, everyday I was always curious of the inspiration for the day. It always overwhelms me that the next thing I knew, it was already a new day; a new daily prompt again! So I never get to write anything at all 🙂

    Another thing is the time difference; I should be watching out for the new Daily Prompt at around 8:00 PM here in my place. By then, I’d be already sleeping cause I’ll be working the next day. When I get home from work, voila! another Daily Prompt 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

  13. The prompts really do help me to get rolling again when I feel blocked! I’m glad I’ve resubscribed to the Daily Post, because it helps me to feel like I’m part of the community, rather than just a voice out there writing on my own.

    Liked by 2 people

  14. Hi Michelle, You really got me there, though sometimes I respond to prompt but mostly after writing i think my idea is not good and it goes to pending draft. Loved your post and getting inspired. Thanks.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Sometimes the Daily Prompt has been so close to something I have recently published it’s almost spooky. A couple of times I have actually gone back an linked a recent post with the Daily Prompt page for that reason. I don’t respond to all the prompts, time permitting I use the ones that “speak to me” and ignore the ones that don’t– but I have really appreciated them as a source of inspiration. Some of my favourites have been the ones I “deconstructed” because the prompt itself irked me so much.

    Liked by 2 people

  18. From a rookie blogger – sometimes I use my previous posts as prompts.

    Today you inspired me to recap my last twenty five days. Horrifying, inspiring and not what I expected!

    Liked by 4 people

  20. The short answer is no. The longer answer is over on one of my blogs where I actually did a pretty harsh critique about people who revolve their blogs around prompts and challenges, so I won’t add the link.

    One commenter to that post added a very valid point, saying that you can often end up with a load of posts that are all saying the same thing.

    I’ll do the photochallenge from time to time, but only if I can think of a different twist for it, rather than what WP suggests we go with, for pretty much the same reason, say the challenge was ‘bridge’ then I might not go for an actual bridge, but something different that was bridging the gap, I don’t know, muslim and jew shaking hands for example.

    I don’t like the idea of blogging daily (I could and without prompts) because I find it hard to keep up with daily blogs, and to comment on them too. I have more than one blog, and I don’t want to overload my regular readers. I spend half my time on commenting, rather than more blogging. So the idea of a prompt, whether daily or at all, just doesn’t fit with the way I blog.

    If other people need it, or find it helpful, that’s fine. But people should also learn to look for their own ‘prompts’. Is there something in the news locally or internationally that you could write about? Or post a photo of? That’s an easy but obvious one. Did you listen to some music, read a book, have a conversation that you could expand into a post? A little imagination is all it takes.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. “People should also learn to look for their own ‘prompts’.”

      Totally agree, for those of us who write personal or topical blogs. For those who have blogs to use as a place to cultivate a writing practice, writing to a prompt can be a useful exercise.

      Liked by 2 people

  22. Sometimes I answer the prompts, sometimes, not. It’s a new direction for me that I’ve not decided if I like. Mainly I choose the prompt or not, depending on if I can adapt it to advance the themes of my site. I do appreciate your constant availability. I cannot imagine having to be the one who comes up with this stuff and then gets criticized by folks who cannot come up with a way to adapt.

    Liked by 2 people

  23. I’m looking for bloggers who have found these writing prompts helpful, or have writing tips that they’d like to share. I’d like to promote guest posts on my blog that focuses on writing. I think y’all in the daily prompts would be perfect as guest bloggers.

    Liked by 4 people

  25. I wrote and posted in response to today’s prompt, After reading the link instructions, it ended up a blog post,but never found it’s way into the Daily Prompts thread. It’s true my technological skills are less than stellar, still, I need a simple easy way to be a part of this. Any takers?

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Wendy, it looks like you’ve put in a link to your own post — to create a pingback, you need to put in a link to The Daily Post. Use the link of whatever prompt here you’re responding to, and put that into your post on your blog.

      Liked by 1 person

  26. The idea of prompts is great, whether they are from The Daily Post or even a prompt from another source such as a book or current news. I’ve just started writing and I’m using Robin Sharma’s lessons as my prompts. I’ve only written 3 posts so far so it’s early days but it has definitely provided me with some focus.

    Liked by 9 people

  27. I love writing posts in response to photo prompts. It is the challenge of linking both a photo and text to the prompt and also to make sure that all this hits with the social justice food theme of my blog. Long live prompts!

    Liked by 6 people

  28. English isn’t my first language, but the ‘never TO late to join in’ just makes me back away from reading further…. it’s TOO late and TOO much and just simply TOO annoying to have to point this out over and over again… sigh… Rant over

    Liked by 8 people