StephenHermer.com
Writing, Iguanas, and Electronics

Daily Writing Prompts

First, some news and updates.

I will not have much time for blogging or working on my novels until early August so that this site will be inactive for most of July. I do have some plans for this time; however, and thought I would share them with you.

  1. I am starting to research book cover artists and will continue to look at the options through July. I do not have a title and will need a completed first draft to write the sales copy for a cover, so this is just research. 
  2. I am starting to search for an artist for the interior of my first fiction novel.  Illustrations are rare in adult fiction, but hey can add to the work if done correctly. I have a lot to learn in this regard, and it was not something I considered until just recently. 
  3. I am reconsidering the target audience for my, as yet, untitled adventure series. I think adult fiction is a better market, but I want to write this series for older children (something in the 10-14 age range). I was always planning to write without swearing, sex scenes, or overly graphic violence, but the structure of the story would have to change. I'll think about this over July and make my decision.
  4. I am planning to write a blog post per week, outline a novel a month, and post a daily writing exercise for the next year!

I can create a rough outline in a day, so one detailed outline per month should be attainable. The daily writing exercises will be more difficult, but I am dedicated to doing them for the following reasons:

  • It is important for an aspiring author to get into the habit of writing every day if they want to finish anything.
  • Writing something that is not connected to the current project can help break writer's block and motivate the writer.
  • Short random stories can be fun to write (this is how I started writing in elementary school).
  • Writers get better with practice so doing any creative writing will help.
  • Writers tend to be perfectionists, which can cause paralysis when the rough draft is terrible (and the rough draft is always terrible). Writing intentionally bad story fragments can help the writer get past their inner editor while working on drafts.
  • The writer can always look back at old daily stories to look for inspiration for plot points, characters, dialogue, locations, etc. Just because these are terrible and unedited does not mean they are necessarily useless to the writer.
  • Finally, writing and sharing these may help motivate another aspiring author to start some sort of daily writing exercises. 

I hope to start the daily writing exercises by early August, so in about a month, and plan on limiting them to a range of 500 to 1000 words. I will write them in sprints, as quickly as possible and without any plan or development before I start, or editing after. I will edit them to correct obvious spelling errors before I post them to this site, but otherwise, they will be very rough story fragments, outlines, descriptions, partial scenes, etc.

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