Prompts vs. Exercises

And a few announcements...

Flash Fiction Retreat, Grand Lake, Colorado

Hi my friends,

It’s April Fool’s Day! And Colorado is playing a good one this morning, as I watch the snow fly. I love just about everything about my adopted state except how it gaslights me every spring. I want to thank the paid subscribers who responded to my request for feedback on February’s Immersion Extravaganza. Your thoughts and suggestions are so helpful as I develop future events for all of you.

I’m rerunning, below, a bit I wrote back in 2021 about writing prompts. The upshot is that I believe in them! But I also want to draw the distinction between prompts and exercises. As we saw in February’s Immersion event, these sorts of prompts and exercises are wonderful for, not only generating new material, but strengthening our writerly muscles.

First, a couple of announcements of upcoming events:

I’m running a one-hour, live, generative workshop on April 11th. Consider joining us! Here’s the LINK to sign up.

ALSO, if you’ve not made all your summer plans yet, Nancy Stohlman and I are teaming up again to run a writing retreat in beautiful Grand Lake, Colorado! July 23rd - 28th. Find the details HERE. These retreats all sell out and come very well recommended. “This retreat provided such a great learning experience with innovative lessons from some of the industry’s finest writers in a beautiful setting, and surrounded by a supportive bunch of friendly, like-minded people. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will remember fondly.” ~Ryan Stone