On The Way, And Finding Your Cue

Well, I have a lot coming up! Here's what the rest of the month is looking like:

• Complete edits of Path of the Horseman
• Interview for OmniLit about Call From The Grave
• Blog interviews and posts for Lost Sky and the Avast, Ye Airships! anthology
• Complete three submissions and submit them before the end of the month using prompts

Now that the updates are done (sorry, all this news got me excited to share), I figured I would give my thoughts on writing prompts. Those of you who have followed my blog for the last little while know that I used one to come up with the idea for Path of the Horseman. Long story short, I love writing prompts. Sure, I can come up with an idea on my own for longer stories, but there's something so much fun about using prompts to inspire you.

The short stories I'm working on now were all based on writing prompts I found on Pinterest. Sometimes I find one that pertains to a story I'm already working on, and other times I take the prompt and build on it completely. The same thing can be said for dialogue prompts. No author interprets them the same way. Some people may argue this isn't the same as genuine inspiration since you didn't come up with the initial idea yourself, but I beg to differ. That'd be like saying Star Wars doesn't inspire thousands of sci-fi writers, or that old Norse mythology (and Marvel, if we're being honest) doesn't inspire legions of fans who want to write about Loki as an antagonist or misunderstood hero.

So while I typically use writing prompts for short stories now, the ideas come quickly all the same. The ideas in A Year Of Writing Dangerously, given to me by a friend for Christmas, is jam-packed with great advice as well as prompts that would serve to challenge an urban fantasy/horror author like me. But they're just a spark that ignites the fuse, and sometimes I use two of them combined to make what I think is an even stronger idea. I would encourage everyone, especially new authors or authors with writers block, to give them a try. You'll be amazed at how much they can help you.

And just in case you were wondering, here are the two that I'm currently working on:

Feeling really good about these ideas working together, and will post an update on them at the end of the week. Until then, cheers!

Amy