Looking for love – or inspiration – in all the right places
It’s a common problem we all have as writers: you’re itching to write something, but you’re having trouble getting started. Maybe you have an idea, or maybe you just have this ineffable urge to write. How do you get started? Here are a few things that work for me:
When I have an idea and need to let it simmer:
- Taking a walk
- Taking a shower
- Riding my bike
- Talking it through with a writing buddy
When I need an idea and have don’t know where to start:
- Listening to music – no, really listen, don’t just have it on in the background
- Browsing an art gallery or Pinterest board
- Checking out writing websites for prompts (hint: we’ve got one for you down below)
- Opening the dictionary, grabbing a word at random, and building a story around that
What doesn’t work for me is forcing a story that isn’t there. Sometimes I need to tease it out, and that can mean a couple of false starts. Which is fine! There’s nothing wrong with abandoning a story that isn’t working. Either I’ll figure it out later – after it simmers! – or I’ll count it as an exercise and move onto something new.
I’d love to know your tips – come share them over on Discord or Facebook!
~Christine
This Week’s Writing Prompt is:
This week, your job, should you choose to accept it, is to write a story, essay, or poem incorporating the following prompt:
Trope: The Darkness Gazes Back
We’re taking a cue from this year’s Scarlet Quill Society and getting some practice incorporating – or subverting – popular tropes. You can picture it: our hero is in a dark house. The power is out. It’s utterly silent, and yet our hero knows that something is there. They turn around, and suddenly, in the deepest, darkest shadows, they see a pair of glowing eyes gazing back at them out of the darkness. Yikes! This trope is common in horror media, but it can also be used humorously. What’s your take? Play with the prompt, and when you’ve got your story down, come tell us about it! Share snippets of or links to your best story in Discord or on Facebook! Stuck? Check out last year’s — no, year before last! — series on responding to prompts!
Share your response in the Coffeehouse, located both on Facebook or Discord, by linking your blog post, Google Doc, or other file. Check out your fellow YeahWriters’ responses, and don’t forget to leave them some love in the comments!
Looking for our weekly grids? After nearly ten years, they’ve been retired. Read more about the latest changes to YeahWrite in the #500 Weekly Writing Challenge Kickoff Post.
The Schedule
We will release a new prompt on our blog every Friday at 12pm Eastern. Then it’s up to you! Write your response to the prompt on your own blog or website and share the link in the Coffeehouse, located both on Facebook or Discord. If you prefer to keep your work under wraps (and away from the eyes of potential publishers), you can still ask for beta readers in the Coffeehouse and share your work privately! Every Monday, we’ll check in to see how you’re doing and what your writing goals are for the week. Wednesdays are “Work-in-Progress Wednesdays.” Share a few sentences or even a paragraph or two in the Coffeehouse (no more than 250 words, please). Even if you’re not done writing, this could be the boost you need to stay motivated. Did you publish a book? Do you have a story in a magazine? The First Friday of every month is for self-promotion, where you can share commercial links to your work for purchase. (You can always share the news that you’ve been accepted for publication, though!) And of course, the entire community is here 24-7 to share your victories and setbacks, challenges and accomplishments. So come on in, pull up a chair, and say hello. We’re all writers here.
Upcoming and Ongoing
Sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any upcoming classes, workshops, or competitions.
Scarlet Quill Society (Free Workshop w/ Optional Paid Benefits)
Welcome to the secret back room where the Scarlet Quill Society meets. In this year-long workshop, we’ll be focusing on tropes! Love ’em or hate ’em, you can’t avoid ’em. For the purpose of this year’s workshop, we’re defining a trope as a building block of storytelling. It’s a device or pattern of events that is used to solve plot or character problems or communicate meaning efficiently and effectively. Check out July’s post, in which we take a look at worldbuilding: the tropes we do and don’t want to see. And then hop over to our YouTube channel to hear what our panel of experts thinks about why Everything is Europe! If you have a good time, leave a tip and we’ll love you forever.
Scarlet Quill Society workshop posts are always free. In addition, we are offering a couple add-ons that we think you’ll find exciting and worth a few bucks a month: face-to-face (okay, virtual) monthly gatherings to delve into the topics and answer your questions, and an editorial backroom on Discord! And for a bonus, if you’re a paid SQS member and you can’t make it to a meeting, you can still send us questions beforehand and we’ll make sure to cover them.
Sign up for a membership today to join the Scarlet Quill Society and automatically receive the Zoom link and password for every meeting. One-off monthly meeting tickets can also be purchased on Kofi. At YeahWrite we believe information wants to be shared. If you can’t afford to join us for society meetings, we post the recording about a week later, and you’re welcome to leave the tip you can afford (even if that’s just a nice thank you comment). Check out our YouTube channel for more.
Super Challenge #28 (Fiction)
YeahWrite’s Super Challenge #28 (flash fiction) is officially over! Congratulations to our champion, MM Schreier, and to Alyssa Beatty and Jennifer Gunner for rounding out the top three! We cannot wait to showcase these three stories in our upcoming anthology ::flails::. But don’t worry, YeahWriters! If you didn’t make the top three in either of our 2023 Super Challenges, that doesn’t mean your chances are over to be published. We will be opening up for submissions! Stay tuned for more details (and be sure to sign up for our mailing list so you don’t miss out on any updates).
Spontaneous Writing Challenges
About the author:
Christine Hanolsy is a (primarily) science fiction and fantasy writer who simply cannot resist a love story. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor and stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief in 2020. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker for her YeahWrite essay, “Rights and Privileges.” Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals and her creative nonfiction at Dead Housekeeping and in the Timberline Review. Outside of YeahWrite, Christine’s past roles have included Russian language scholar, composer, interpreter, and general cat herder. Find her online at christinehanolsy.com.
