Prompting Myself

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:49:15 GMT

So, I was recently reading deird1's recent post on prompt communities, and a few things suddenly fell into place for me (as I write this, I notice how I verge into slightly different territory than deird1 did, still I think it's worth writing anyway).

Over the last year I've been noticing exactly how little creative work I'd been doing, and I think the reason is because, well, nothing's prompting me to do it. When I still roleplayed at MURP, I was often the GM, but I'd almost never plan a session, because I was much more comfortable bouncing off other people, but I also wonder whether part of the reason was because honestly, there are very few things I've done in my life that weren't banging right up onto the deadline. It wasn't that I rushed things, or that I did things without thinking, but that until I was made to do something, it just never got done. I've often noted how I could never seem to do essays until the day before they were due. It wasn't that I hadn't been thinking about the essay, or doing the research, I'd just... never had a reason to start writing the damn thing until the night before. It infuriated more than a few people in my life, but it was really how I worked. And I did well enough to get into honours, so clearly there was something going on there. My Psych even calls it being prompt-focused. I don't do things until I'm prompted, simple enough.

So, it's occured to me quite a few times in the last year that I should get back into writing, but I've never actually done more than an abortive attempt at creative writing. And I'm certain that I'm not the only one on my flist who's feeling the same here. I'd join a fandom community and start writing, but I have no fandoms right now, certainly none that I'm thinking enough about to want to write fanfic.

Then I remembered about Lexicons. As world-building exercises, they're not fantastic, but as deadline-constrained collaborative creative writing exercises, they're brilliant, and quite adaptable to a range of different writing styles.

If I started a game of Lexicon, would there be anyone on my flist who'd be interested in playing with me? I wouldn't be doing a full 26-turn Lexicon (maybe a phone-pad lexicon, those are just short enough to keep everyone going until the end), and I wouldn't necessarily be setting it up as encyclopedia-style writing. Just a way of giving everyone a neat prompt for some collective writing, and have a little fun while doing it. A way of getting my arse into gear and actually start writing again, even if it's only 200-300 word things. I'd even be really nice and make 1-week deadlines for everyone, just so there's as little pressure as possible while still having a tight deadline. Who's in with me?

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The Journal of Lee Davis-Thalbourne

Prompting Myself