Creative Writing Prompts - The Secret To Exploding Your Creative Writing Potential

It's easy for us as writers to get into a rut with our writing. Even if we're still writing fairly prolifically, sometimes it feels like we've become some kind of factory line conveyor belt, churning out near identical copies of the same pieces of writing.

Now because you're a highly creative and imaginative person and not a factory robot, you need more stimulation, more variation. Volume is not enough, it's also important to have the variety.

Also, as someone creative, you're keen to continually evolve and feel you're developing and moving forward. If you think you're destined to be simply rewriting the same poems, stories, songs or novels for the rest of your life, that's hardly an exciting incentive to continue, is it?

Creative writing prompts are a great tool to help you explore your creative writing potential.

In fact more than that, by using writing prompts regularly, you can explode your writing potential in all directions, many of which you never even considered trying before.

A creative writing prompt is simply a short phrase or idea that gives you a starting point for a new adventure in your writing.

Once you're off and running, the rest is up to you. The prompts provides you with that initial direction and little burst of energy to get going. Where you take it after that is completely up to you.

Without the kind of starting point a writing prompt provides, you could be sitting at a blank page for the rest of your life.

And I'm sure you know how painful and unpleasant an experience this kind of writer's block can be.

Some people have avoided using writing prompts because they don't want any help with their writing. They feel they should be creating every single part of the writing, every tiny fragment of idea, every word and syllable. Maybe this is a concern you've had too?

Creative writing prompts aren't the "cheat" that you might think they are. They're not giving you a finished piece of work served up on a platter. The creativity and the imagination comes from you.

For example, say a creative writing prompt says simply: "What passion means to me - ". Everything after those 5 words comes from your own creative mind. You may start writing about your passion for horses and end up with the outline for a new novel about a young girl's journey from riding horses bareback on her parents' farm to winning gold in a showjumping championship.

You might write about the passionate romantic memories you have from your teens, and realise that there are certain things you'd forgotten than you want to rediscover with your current partner.

Or you might write about writing itself, what it gives you that nothing else can, how it makes you feel.

Wherever you take it, it's your ideas, your memories, your creative talent and imagination that's producing the words.

Run with it, have fun and enjoy where it leads.

Start using creative writing prompts today, and you'll see too how a few words or a snatch of an idea can explode YOUR creative writing potential too...