October 2023 The Great Substack Prompt Celebration
Your Inspiration Invitation
Earlier this year, Heather Huffman and Nicole Rivera joined the Fictionistas crew to help build community around our fiction creations on Substack. We call this adventure The Great Substack Prompt Celebration (read a detailed explanation here).
Each month we share writing prompts, have a live Zoom call where we write together, and then wrap up the month by asking all participants to share their stories and read submissions from their fellow Fictionistas. We know, for sure, that fiction writing is happening, now, after our summer vacation hiatus, we are interested in upping our community engagement game.
Let’s Talk Prompts!
Alright Fictionistas, let’s hear about your experience with prompts. In the comments below, let us know:
How do you approach a writing prompt?
Are writing prompts tools you use regularly on your own, or only engage with in community? For those of you who are veterans of the Writing Prompt Parties either here in Fictionistas, or in Stop Writing Alone, let us know how you get into the prompts under the pressure of a live call?
Mark Your Calendar & Grab Your Link
You officially have one week to warm up before this month’s fun begins. Remember, Fictionistas who join the Writing Prompt Party will be the first to get this month’s prompt and the first to get some real-time reactions to their first drafts!
Your Official Invitation to Party
The October Writing Prompt Party will be on October 12, 2023 at 6PM Eastern. We would love to see you there (but keep in mind, if you can’t make it, we will be posting the prompt to Fictionistas after the meeting)!
Nicole Rivera is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: FICTIONISTAS Writing Prompt Party OCTOBER 2023
Time: Oct 12, 2023 06:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81098047860?pwd=cVI1SmNNTjRSakZ3RU5vc2xXNmxlUT09
Meeting ID: 810 9804 7860
Passcode: FICTION!
Was This All Too Long To Read?
If you are a bullet-points kind of person, I’ve got a PDF for you. The Zoom link you need to participate is above, but all the details of our plan can be found in the document below.
Printable PDF:
What It Looks Like:
Let’s write together this month, Fictionistas!
I’m Heather, creator and face behind Sprinkled Inspiration. If you’re looking for more prompts I’m your girl! I post daily prompts and Have a feature Friday where other creatives share a prompt of their own. Join Here
I’m Nicole creator of all things Stop Writing Alone including a podcast, a YouTube channel, and a Substack community hosting multiple monthly Live Zoom Events for writers seeking community. If you are ready to truly stop writing alone, join here.
Thanks for reading Fictionistas! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
I generally only like using writing prompts when there is a hard time limit, because otherwise I overthink them. But in a writing prompt party like this, or something done in a writing workshop, where there is only, say 10 or 20 minutes to write, I don’t have time to plan out the story in my head so I just have to start writing.
in terms of how I approach them, what I do is hear the prompt, and then give myself maybe a couple seconds to orient myself, and then just start putting words on the page. I might decide to use an existing character or world, to make the choice between fiction and autobiography, or something else in those few seconds, but then I just start writing. and inevitably, I put something down that I never would’ve come up with otherwise. In the last two writing prompt exercises that I’ve done, I’ve written the start of scenes for my next book that I never would’ve imagined without the writing prompt.
One thing I struggle with is writing a complete story within the limited timeframe, or even finding endings with the benefit of time afterwards. I really wish there was a technique to figuring out an ending quickly.
Oh I'll be there. I'll be there with bells on.*
*Don't worry, I'll keep my mic muted.