There was a time when I would write daily about nearly anything that crossed my mind. It could have been something as silly as shopping for shoes or as serious as a trip to the emergency room with my son. I wrote because it was simply what I did, and I enjoyed it even when it was mundane.

Lately though it seems I’ve started to self-censor what I write. I’m shying away from the heavy stuff yet also holding back on the trivial daily life entries as well. The middle ground I find myself in has started to feel watered down and absent of oompfh (for lack of a better word).

Some nights I sit in bed with the laptop perched on my legs and just stare at the blank screen, willing some inspired thought to leak out through my finger tips. I may tap out a few sentences then decide I’m too tired or it would take to long to fully flesh out the thought so I give up and shut the computer off.

A while back I participated in NaBloPoMo where you’re encouraged to write something every day for an entire month. They give optional themes for each month but by no means are you required to follow them. Just write something. Every day. For a whole month. Yeah, that got old after about the 14th day. Overall the exercise was good because it really made me more aware of the thoughts that float around in my head all day long, which ones could be forgotten in an instant, and those that were jotted down on paper for a blog post later on.

While writing something every day would be a bit ambitious for me at this time, I do want to get back in the habit of writing more frequently that I currently am. I don’t remember how I stumbled up on Plinky, but I am excited that I did. Plinky gives a different prompt every day. Some will end up as a silly, short, mundane post, but after checking out their archive, I’m sure others will stump me and have me scratching my head, dazed at how I plan to answer it coherently.

My first prompt will go up tomorrow or the next day (again – not forcing myself every day, just more often) and hopefully will continue every other day or so. How long will it last? Who knows. Maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe until I am feeling a bit more inspired and can come up with more interesting topics on my own. And as those topics come up – then Plinky will go away as needed. To help me sort the entries, I’ll tag them as “writing prompts.”

Now then…my first prompt: What’s In Your Pantry?

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 7:23 am and is filed under Daily Life, Writing Prompts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.