#the prompt said 100-300 words you have maybe 30 and one of the words in question is ''lol'' ... karma (she/her) is a cruel mistress .

[pissditching]

gone off a blinker watching two people deadname me in a discussion board response assignment worth 20% of our final grade where they both failed to meet the response prompt requirements so miserably i can’t even find it in me to care about getting deadnamed

[heath-ur]

00Q Kinktober - Day 7

Prompt List ; Ao3  Pairing: Bond x Q  Prompt: Sixty-Nine  Warnings: Smut, No Beta

Me: I need to get faster at these. Only 100-300 words of lead-up & 500-600 words of smut. No more auxiliary characters. Go. 

Also Me: So let’s do nearly 700 words of unnecessary plot and make R lesbian.

Brain, why?   

The next afternoon, Q is still doing his best not to show his subordinates just how sore his ass is. He’s not sure how successful he’s been able to hide it from R or Moneypenny; going by their smug looks, not much, so he just eyes them smugly right back. ‘Yes, my arse is sore,’ he hopes his looks covey, ‘but it was so worth it.’ Going by their eye-rolls, he thinks they get it. 

Despite the distraction, he is able to complete 3 projects and assists 002 with breaching the security of her weapons-dealing mark. They gather enough intel that she’ll be returning to London in the next 48 hours. All-in-all, he thinks he deserves to be a little smug. 

So of course that’s when Bond walks into Q branch. Damn. Q knew he was forgetting something. 

He knows - he knows - that neither Bond or Alec consider these little liaisons as going steady. There has been no talk about exclusivity, they both still fuck during missions with or without honeypots. And that’s fine. Q isn’t one to be jealous - it’s a waste of productivity and energy. And he’s used to having multiple and infrequent partners. That’s what happens when you work with a governmental spy agency. 

However, he also knows that the two blonds are quite good friends. And also know how to kill with their thumbs. When he started this he didn't know that they would keep coming back for this long; he hadn’t realized that he would need to tell them about each other. Honestly, he’d thought that after the first successful mission each, the agents would lose interest. But of course they can’t even follow their own usual patterns. 

So this leaves Q standing at his platform station, hands planted on his sit-stand desk, as he faces a post-mission-high double-oh that wants a booty call while Q’s booty is off-the-table this time around. Q nods in Bond’s direction and cuts his eyes to the office-space he rarely uses since he prefers to stand among his subordinates. 

Bond nods back and wanders into the small, separated space. R gives Q a glance over her tablet as she swings by his desk with a new cup of tea. Q signs and takes a sip of the tea. His voice is as dry as the desert when he speaks up, “Alert security if I’m not back out in 5?”

R snorts and rolls her eyes, “And have them walk in to you being buggered? No thanks, boss. You’ve got about 30 minutes until that meeting with HR.” 

Oh, big buggering fuck. He forgot about that, too. Alec must have shorted out his brain last night. He hums and takes a bigger swing of his tea. “I suppose that’s another option.”

R sighs. Q isn’t sure how she makes it both exasperated and wistful. “If 002 ever fancies me back, you best be as understanding as I’m being right now.” 

Q nods, “If you find yourself a lady worthy of your brilliance, you can always borrow my office.” He turns and winks at her before making his way to the office. 

Inside, Bond is sitting on the futon that takes up a good third of the room while he looks at the lone Home Bargains art print on the opposing wall. He looks up and smirks as Q walks in and locks the door. “You know, not that I’m opposed to office sex, but I was planning on offering you dinner again.”

Q shrugs and crosses his arms, “I’ve 4 more hours, at least. No sense in you waiting. However, full disclosure, I’ve only 30 minutes and my arse isn’t an option at this time. I’m too sore.” 

Bond’s eyebrows slowly rise higher on his face as Q speaks, but his smile never waivers. “Oh? Well, I hope it was at least worth it. Anyone I know?” He waggles said eyebrows, gesturing with his hand for Q to step closer. 

Q steps until he’s only an arms reach away, humming. “Well, I have a type, you see. Something about blonds and muscles and men with licenses to kill.” He shrugs nonchalantly and loses the last of his nervous energy as Bond’s grin widens.

Bond lunges forward to wrap his palms gently at Q’s hips to drag him forward. “So, you’re Alec’s little kitten, hmm? He was singing your praises this morning.” 

Q slides one of his knees between Bond’s thighs to rest it on the futon’s edge, draping his arms loosely on Bond’s shoulders. “Do you two always gossip about your conquests?” 

Bond laughs and rubs his palms soothingly up Q’s back. “Only the good ones. And never enough to breach the virtues of their privacy. But, oh, the things we’re going to be talking about after this.” He suddenly reaches a hand up and grips Q’s curls in a tight grip, tugging him down enough for a kiss. 

Q can’t help his startled moan as he opens up his mouth for the kiss, letting Bond control the depth as he keeps gripping and twisting at the strands in his hand. When he’s let up, he knows his eyes must be dazed and he can feel the flush in his cheeks and down his neck. “So, no concerns, then?”

Bond confirms with another kiss, this one lasting only long enough to make Q whine as Bond pulls back and angles Q’s head to kiss down his jaw and throat to bite against the fabric of Q’s shirt. “30 minutes?” 

Q nods.

“Well, best make it worth it,” Bond winks and starks working on Q’s trouser buttons. Q gets with the program and begins to reciprocate, fighting with Bond’s buckle until it’s bested. 

Cocks freed, Bond pulls two condoms from his suit jacket pocket and rips one open to put onto his own cock. At the same time, he shifts and settles until he’s laying sideways on the futon, pants sliding off and down his legs. Q begins following him but gets stopped by a palm on his hip. “Turn around, Q, let me see Alec’s hard work.” 

Q blushes and his cock jumps as he fumbles putting the condom on. He lets his pants fall full to the ground, tripping out of his shoes to scramble onto the futon and swinging one leg to straddle Bond’s thighs, facing Bond’s feet. The man wears sock garters, the functional (non-functional) part of his brain thought as Bond’s previous words scrolled through the other half of his brain. 

Bond puts his hands back to Q’s hips and arranges the man as he sees fit, to get a better look. He hums and draws one finger around a still- tender mark of Alec’s index on the back of Q’s thigh. “Oh, these will be beautiful bruises. It really is too bad that he didn’t take pictures like he had wanted to.” 

Q’s traitorous cock jumps  again. He had to curl into himself and let his hands drop to either side of Bond’s knees. “20 minutes.” Q fails at trying to sound unaffected. 

Bond lets out an affected sad sigh. “We both best get to it, then.” And then in one motion he pulls Q’s hips closer to his head as he slides further down the futon to take Q’s cock in his mouth. It’s heat and the flutter of Bond’s tongue and the tapered rumble of his trapped laugh.

Q curses and takes a breath before he returns the favor and presses his mouth around Bond’s cock, sucking and working his tongue, trying to get his self-possession back by proving his skill. If Bond’s approving hum is any indication, he’s succeeding. Of course, that hum is accompanied by a controlled roll of Bond’s hip, making Q take more until Bond’s cock is being swallowed in the preservation of Q’s gag-reflex. 

Q sucks and rolls his own hips, smacking at Bond’s thigh in reprimand as the older man presses a thumb into one of Q’s forming bruises just to make him jump. He can’t help but squirm, even with his dick held in Bond’s mouth. The other hand gripping and fondling his bullocks doesn't help. Q would try working on Bond’s, but to be honest he needs both wobbling arms to hold himself up. 

Instead, he rises off until only Bond’s tip is still inside his mouth, takes a deep breath, and goes back down in three quick bobs, holding at the tip against just to repeat the pattern. The noises are slick and sound loud in the room. Q has a moment of concern about sound-proofing or lack thereof, but quickly forgets the concern as Bond does something with his tongue. Oh, maybe he could learn that.

The whole experience is a race to the finish-line and both parties cross nearly at the same time with matching thrusts and hot suction, faces messy and breathless. Q pulls back onto his knees and checks his watch. 

4 minutes. “Fuck.”

[mad-madam-m]

So I'm just curious, how do you get yourself to write? And do you use prompts and if you do where do you get them? I meant to use NaNo to get me to write but it took 4 days into November for me to realize November started so I failed lol. I've been meaning to start this original thing and it's just not...working.

First of all, anon, you could start writing RIGHT NOW (yes, with 10 days left in the month) and you would not fail NaNo. You might not hit 50k (although I know people who have hit 50k in that amount of time, or less), but you won’t fail. NaNoWriMo isn’t about hitting 50,000 words so much as it is about putting a stake in the ground and saying, “Here. Today. I will start writing the project I’ve always wanted to.” And doing it. Doesn’t matter what that project is—original novel, short stories, fic, poetry, revising something, a series of blog posts—NaNo is about just. Fucking. Doing it. And you still have time to Do It.

To answer your questions:

Do you use prompts and if you do, where do you get them?

For original stories, particularly novels, I usually don’t. For fic, particularly short fic I’m writing for events, I do. Tumblr has a wealth of writing prompts that range from “here’s a situation” to “here’s a line of dialogue GO,” and I tend to reblog them under the tags “fic prompts” or “writing prompts.” Honestly, most of them would work for either original fic or fanfic, so if you are a writer who likes to work from prompts, go forth and enjoy!

How do you get yourself to write?

That’s kind of a big question, and uh, the answer to it got long. Very long. (I said once that if you give me half a chance, I’ll talk about writing all the live-long day, and this answer is no exception.)

Different things motivate me for different projects, and as with all writing-related advice, YMMV, but here’s a few things that really help for getting myself to write:

1) Develop your story.

The current original story I’m working on, for example, I have not really had to struggle to get myself to write at all because 1) I’m stupid excited about it and 2) I have developed the hell out of it.

I’ve talked before about outlining my stuff here, so I won’t go too much into it again; suffice it to say that I have done about the same amount of development on my current original story that I had on ADA by the time I started writing. I started around the very end of September developing my characters and spent a good chunk of October working on setting, worldbuilding, plot, and finally my notecards.

Shockingly, having some idea of what’s happening and where I’m going is making this story easier to write.

Right? Like WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT.

Because of that, I’ve been excited about writing my story, so getting myself to write on it has been (comparatively) a cakewalk.

That’s not to say any of the writing is good (oh God no) or that there aren’t parts that need fixing, or that I haven’t been stuck. But it’s been stuck like “how do I describe seeing a tree-covered mountain in the middle of fall from the POV of someone who has never seen something like this” rather than “I have no fucking clue what happens next uh…”

The stories I struggle the most with writing are the ones that I’ve worked the least on developing. The stories that have been the easiest to write have been the ones I’ve spent at least a month doing prep work on before I ever start drafting.

2) Love your story.

Being in love with a story makes it a lot easier to write, at least for me. Because here’s the thing, ideas are easy.

If you’re a creative person, you’re going to end up with a file of story ideas—maybe prompts you liked, dialogue that stuck with you, one of those “humans are space orcs” tumblr posts that’s just really clicking in your brain—that will be longer than you could conceivably write if you had a hundred lifetimes. That’s okay! That’s great. But it means a lot of them are never going to get past the idea stage.

For me, the stories that get finished—the ones that not only get started but actually make it through the first draft and then three rounds of editing and revisions—are the ideas that I’ve been percolating on for months, if not longer. They’ve been cooking in the back of my brain while I’ve been doing other things, sorting themselves out, and most importantly: they will not let me go.

Coming up with ideas is easy. Finding an idea that will last and sustain a story and my interest for at least a year, if not longer? That’s harder.

Y’all know how much I’ve been talking about Tiger & Bunny over the past year? We’re talking that level of obsession with a story that I want to write, whether it’s fic or original. Sometimes it takes months or years for all the puzzle pieces to come together. Sometimes the whole thing will congeal within a few weeks, or there will be one crucial piece of story that will just make EVERYTHING come together, I will literally shout “OH MY FUCKING GOD” and that’s it, I’m off to the races. (In this particular case, it wasn’t anything I’d done in the first two weeks of poking at steampunk-y ideas; it was the realization that I could put a circus on an airship. The whole story just went WHOOSH after that.)

BUT. But. Sometimes you don’t have that. These stories are great and I love them and they remind me why I love writing so much (and if you’re writing something that’s gonna be 90k+, like I have a tendency to do, you need to be in love with it, IMO), but sometimes you’re in situations where you just have to get it done. In those cases:

3) Resort to bribery.

I’ve been poking at the third part of Alpha & Emissary, oh, basically since I posted the second part. My problem is that my fandom focus has been, shall we say, split for the past year. *coughs delicately, shoves Tiger & Bunny fics under the bed*

But here’s the thing: I hate having a published WIP on AO3 (it’s why I don’t publish long!fics until they’re completely drafted and mostly edited). I hate—HATE—having an unfinished series on AO3.

So that’s the rub: I have an unfinished series that I want to finish because I hate that it’s not finished. I also have a new fandom that is wresting my attention and inspiration away from said series. What’s a girl to do?

A girl tells herself she can’t write any more Tiger & Bunny fic until she finishes this one WIP, that’s what she does.

And it’s motivated me to sit my ass down and work on that WIP, because goddammit, I have a “but there was only one bed” TaiBani fic that I would really like to have up by New Year’s.

Your bribery will be different. Maybe you get to watch 1 episode of your favorite show per every 1k you write, or you get to try a new knitting project when you finish this short story. Maybe you binge-watch an entire season of your favorite anime if you exceed your NaNo goal. Or you write 50 words and get a cookie. The point is, find what works for you to get it done.

4) Figure out a minimum daily goal and stick with it.

For me, this was 500 words a day. 500 words. That’s it. That’s one 30-minute word sprint for me. That’s something I can do without stressing myself out.

Because of this point and point 3, I wrote more than 7000 words on a story I’d been stuck on for the better part of a year before I had to stop to work on NaNo stuff. Another 7k, and I’ll probably have it finished.

Your minimum word count will almost certainly be different. Maybe it’s 300 words a day, maybe it’s 1000. Hell, maybe it’s 100 words. Again, find what works for you, what you can write regularly without stressing yourself out.

Another important thing: If I didn’t hit 500 words, I didn’t beat myself up about it. Maybe I wrote 350. Or 220. Or just 93. The point is, did I write? Yes? Then I did good. I got myself a sentence or a paragraph closer to finishing. And it all adds up.

(And hey, you don’t have to write every day. I do, or I try to, because that’s what works for me. If it stresses you out to do so, then find another way to make it work.)

5) Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

This one’s hard because I can rarely keep a deadline that’s not set by an external source. If you tell me on December 20 that you need a story by December 22? Then on December 22, you’ll have a story, edited and ready to post. But when it comes to something I set for myself, the chances of a deadline working are 50/50.

That being said, it is something that helps me keep on track and even if I don’t finish something by a self-imposed deadline, it does get me writing.

6) Sprint with friends!

NaNo is really great for this because all your writer friends are coming out of the woodwork going I need to hit 5k by the end of today, will you sprint with me? Sometimes it just helps to have that kind of accountability. You all get together (I’ve used Discord, Google Hangouts, IRC, and Twitter DMs for this), set a timer, and write for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes. Then, when the time’s up, you post your word count, everybody congratulates everybody else, and then you take a break before doing the next one.

Sprints are the reason I’ve been able to make some pretty significant headway on my word counts, and few things get me writing like knowing I’m going to have to tell everybody in my group what my word count is in 30 minutes or less. >.>

Like I said earlier, YMMV on all of these. What works for me may work for you, or it might not. But if you aren’t sure, it’s worth giving it a shot.

Happy writing!

[hope-and-sleep]

So I made a list of things I wanted to do this summer

And wow is it terrifyingly long.  It scares me, and I’m the one who wrote it.  I’m going to be lucky to do even a quarter of these things.

Imma try to do all of these things.

Read on for the ridiculously long list

Tumblr: So I have 4 tumblr blogs: 1) a main blog 2) a studyblr 3) (new!) a reblog blog 4) (new!) an rp, which I currently haven’t posted on but am planning to. All four of them need to be worked on

lizhly: retag literally everything

hope-and-sleep: create a tags list and also retag literally everything

compendium-of-things - reblog every reblog from lizhly with appropriate tags.  Also reblog a whole bunch of stuff from the ‘likes’ stuff that you wanted to reblog but didn’t because you thought it’d be awkward to have a giant mass of reblogs all within 1 minute

bells-and-belligerence - create a tags list (easy considering there aren’t posts) and attempt an update every week (difficult because I decided to make things hard on myself and mandate that each update requires a drawing)

For all: attempt html design

For all: make icons

Career: I need to at least try to be a responsible person and do stuff that would try to advance my professional life

Make ur LinkedIn profile so that it contains more than literally your picture

update your Resume

Write a CV at some point

Make your own website (if you finish with compendium)

Come up with some kind of elevator pitch

Language: Fluency is a beautiful thing

My parents have learned of my goals.  My dad is apparently now making it a point to remind me of them every time I’m speaking English instead of Cantonese, and this is actually really hard because 1) I have to actively think “don’t speak English” and 2) I have the vocabulary and syntax of a toddler.  Worse than a toddler.

5 words a day in my app, complete with writing practice

Video Games: I’m a CS major that wants to work on video games but also hasn’t played very many video games.  This clearly needs to be rectified.

See if you remember the password to ur Steam account

Buy cheap/free games and attempt to finish one every two weeks (lol not going to happen)

Games you want to play/finish at some point (that may or may not be cheap): Undertale, Skyrim, Doki Doki Literature Club, FFXIII, Rogue Galaxy

Play one of zephy0’s games

Make a practice for Ludum Dare

Do Ludum Dare!

Writing

300 words a day

try one writing prompt a week! (lol i totally know ur not going to do it)

attempt to finish eyes open wide

attempt to finish salute to the graves

July Camp NaNoWriMo

Art

try 30 min a day

that one comic you said you were going to do but never did

Make a PayPal (open commissions???)

style studies (maybe one a week?)

Actual literal studies

perhaps one of those 100 theme challenges that you started six years ago and never actually came close to finishing

Music

Attempt to memorize one song per month

Finally figure out how to play Megalovania

Finally figure out how to play Bergentrückung

Adulting

Learn how to cook

Learn how to drive (in a way that doesn’t make ur mother fear for her life)

Clean ur fucking room

Clean out your Desktop

Clean out your inbox.  All of the inboxes.  You have so many of them.

Education

Recode (redo some of your 131 stuff)

CS 180 stuff (read thru perhaps 1 textbook chapter a week?)

CS 111 stuff

Review CS 32 stuff

Codecademy!

Blender

Unity

Search for coding competitions ( the ones every saturday will work fine!)

Miscellaneous

attempt some kind of skincare regimen

Go to bed before midnight

wake up ridiculously early in a way that terrifies other people

learn how to do a handstand

become ambidextrous

attempt to do a cartwheel without killing yourself or anyone around you

attempt to do the splits without killing yourself or anyone around you

...Ehehe.  Um, I actually think it might be literally impossible to do all these?  I’m not totally sure how much free time I’m going to have per day, because I have a job now and I don’t have anything resembling a time schedule yet.  I can’t do ten of those ‘let me spend at least one hour a day on this’ things if I only have five hours of free time a day, so I feel like this is going to require pretty strict scheduling.

...also I’m sure this list is going to get longer because I feel like I actually had more things I wanted to do this summer but forgot about.

Well.  I’m sure this’ll be a fun time.  

[i-am-very-very-tired]

My friends regularly tell me I should be in therapy. I’m a workaholic with crippling decision anxiety. I can turn the simple choice of whether to take a flight at 2.45pm or 4.30pm into a week-long deliberation that morphs into a meditation on my flaws as a human being. I constantly doubt my own intelligence and often put in longer hours than necessary to compensate for my low self-esteem. In sum, my friends are probably right. But since I’m busy with a full-time job and many freelance assignments, self-care usually takes a backseat to work. If I can’t find 20 minutes for the elliptical, I can’t find three hours a week to spill my problems while sprawled on plush furniture. So when I heard about text therapy, which allows you to message a counsellor via phone while you answer an email and eat lunch at your desk, I signed up. For $100 a month at Talkspace, one of the many apps that offers digital therapy, I could chat in real-time with a therapist for half an hour a week (we usually went way over time). The price is right – a typical one-hour long in-person session can cost between $100 and $300 – but I had reservations about my 30-day experiment. The solution to any workaholic’s problem is never more screen time, and just like the 10-minute pilates videos I watch on YouTube, this seemed like another half-assed attempt to take care of myself. Yet I never paused to worry about what kind of therapist actually believes they can solve complex mental health issues with the most surface form of communication. At first things started out well. I was paired with a woman I’ll call Barbara, based on Talkspace’s “matching process”. We covered the basics. She asked questions such as: “Have you ever thought about where these thoughts about yourself come from in your life? How long have you noticed these type of feelings of inferiority?” And I responded in large blocks of text in which I made connections to my childhood and admitted that I rarely feel as smart as the people around me. I knew it was therapy 101, but it felt powerful to write down the issues that I usually trivialize. The first major red flag with Barbara was her use of emojis In the early days, text therapy was a great spot treatment for my decision anxiety. One afternoon, Barbara talked me through the paralyzing choice of whether or not to attend an awards show in Toronto. Over the course of a few weeks I had exhausted my boyfriend, friends and family with my inability to say yes or no. “Just without thinking about right or wrong … what do you want?” Barbara asked. The question made me think clearly and led to the breakthrough that I rarely trust my own intuition because, well, I don’t really like myself. So my pocket therapist could troubleshoot small problems, but I quickly discovered she could not tackle the roots of my low self-esteem. The first major red flag with Barbara was her use of emojis. After our second session, in which I listed my many negative qualities, she said my long-term mission was to accept myself – a statement she ended with a winking face. I tried to stay cool. I told myself it’s 2016 and bright yellow faces are a valid form of expression, even for a paid therapist. But then I remembered she had already used a few “LOLs” and the meaningless phrase, “I truly believe that the authenticity of our true self, is in our life story...”, and I seriously began to question her intelligence. I realized that if I didn’t bring Barbara a specific problem to solve, she became a self-care bot. At the end of one session she recommended I buy an “interactive journal” from Amazon that features “inspirational quotes” to help readers “appreciate the world around us and achieve our dreams”. She sent me worksheets with kindergarten-like prompts such as “I like myself because” and cheesy TED Talks to help replace my negative thoughts with “positive daily mantras”. When I tried to explain that journalists tend to be cynics, she responded: “Pride in being a skeptic, that is an interesting thing. Can you explain that a bit more for me.” Oh Barbara, I thought, we will never bridge this divide. Once I realized her and I weren’t simpatico, I stopped prioritizing our sessions. As we texted, I kept working with 19 tabs open and threw in my own platitudes such as “How can I better accept myself?” to keep the conversation moving. At one point I even began using punctuation like an overly enthusiastic mother. When she suggested I take 30 minutes away from the screen for lunch, a suggestion I could find on any subpar lifestyle blog, I responded: “Okay will do!!! I will suppress my anxiety that I am wasting time!!” Her response was even more embarrassing. “lol! How about RELEASE your anxiety and give yourself permission to ENJOY time? Just a slight rephrasing.” A few times I was overwhelmed with work and blew Barbara off (she bailed once or twice on me as well). I never felt guilty because, unlike an office visit, our “appointments” were easy to reschedule. She usually responded to my cancellations with a classic winking emoji. Perhaps Barbara was just matching her message to the medium. Maybe she’s decided clients who pay less for mental health than for takeout deserve little more than Oprah-esque cliches. Maybe she was doing her own juggling, cutting and pasting sappy slogans to me and five other clients while she sipped a martini and got a pedicure. But the world of text therapy likely attracts a certain kind of counsellor, the optimists who believe staring at a poster with the words “You are enough” below a sunset can alter brain chemistry. In our final session, I thanked Barbara and she wished me well. Her final text was a smiley face.

[ellatheresaa]

Drabble Prompts

This is a list with roughly 370 prompts. Maybe more. I’ll probably add more as I think of some and please send me some ideas if you’d like. Lots of these I found while scavenging the internet and it’s been awhile so I can’t source all of them but I can source here as where I got lots of the phrases. 

Anyone can use this, obviously. I’m just posting it because I thought it might be interesting to see if others have some ideas and because why not? 

Anyway. Here you go. 370+ prompts. Most will be one word and others will be phrases. 

Note: Ignore the fact that some words are bolded and some aren't. :)

Enjoy!

1. Bullet

2. Lesson

3. Wind

4. Resurface 

5. Winter

6. Cruelty

7. Uncle

8. Happiest 

9. Impact

10. Stalked

11. Immortality

12. College

13. Sauna

14. Carnivore

15. Clutch

16. Wednesday

17. Cavity

18. Engaged

19. Saint

20. Sinner

21. Vacation

22. Outcome

23. Replacement 

24. House With A Picket Fence

25. Smallest

26. Revealing

27. Mistake

28. Abusive

29. Melodramatic

30. Paranoia

31. Surprise

32. Parade

33. Overindulge 

34. Point

35. Mainstream 

36. Antagonistic 

37. Book

38. Sustainability 

39. Hair

40. Exchange

41. Morning

42. Fairy

43. Subjective 

44. Ring

45. Lunch

46. Discipline 

47. Applause 

48. VCR

49. Sailing

50. Sensitive

51. Street

52. Coupon

53. Pattern

54. Hypocrisy

55. Emergency

56. Majestic

57. Wound

58. Girlfriend

59. Camp

60. Health

61. Pregnancy

62. Flag

63. Tyranny

64. Idiot

65. Loan

66. Snow

67. Film

68. Graveyard Shift

69. Booklet

70. Love

71. Genius

72. Perfection

73. Tomorrow

74. Motto

75. Likelihood

76. Uninformed

77. Yellow

78. Shaking

79. Dark

80. City

81. Disposal

82. Profanity

83. Punk

84. Fresh

85. Protocol

86. Distinguishing

87. Hate

88. Letters to the Stars

89. Conspiracy

90. Speech

91. Pain

92. Birthday

93. Skeleton

94. Wartime

95. Anomaly

96. Trust

97. Factory

98. Variety

99. Curtain

100. Heating

101. Suspicious

102. Irony

103. Kleptomaniac

104. Convict

105. Riot

106. Waste

107. Human

108. Naughty

109. Pin up

110. Nuisance

111. Paranoid

112. Plea

113. Dominant

114. Letter

115. Green

116. Award

117. Acceptance

118. Cut

119. Forfeit

120. Space

121. Railroad

122. Offensive

123. Abject

124. Survival

125. Eventually

126. Despicable

127. Loser

128. Champion

129. Fussy

130. River

131. Fear

132. Sleep

133. Underground

134. Threat

135. Hidden

136. Ashamed

137. Mob

138. Joint

139. Leisure

140. Luck

141. Passport

142. Illegal

143. Liar

144. Oxygen

145. Homework

146. Death

147. Impulsive

148. Disarm

149. Double

150. Abundant

151. Tender

152. 1987

153. Feather

154. Ribbon

155. Staccato

156. Asphyxiate

157. Freckles

158. 3:28 A.M.

159. Spider

160. Ballet Shoes

161. Letters to the Moon

162. Letters to the Sun

163. Silhouette

164. Heartbeat

165. Breathless

166. Timid

167. Will of Fire

168. Mirage

169. Walk This Way

170. Let You Down

171. Feels Like Home

172. Yin-Yang

173. Strobe Light

174. Reincarnation

175. Yield

176. Wand

177. Debauchery

178. Inhale. Exhale.

179. Requited

180. Return

181. Carpe diem

182. Tea Cup

183. Euphoria

184. Green Eyes

185. Maiden Name

186. Sweet Tooth

187. Kerosene

188. Don’t Go

189. Empty Threat

190. Wall

191. Door

192. Open

193. Close

194. Hanger

195. Like Glass

196. Childhood

197. Tell the Truth

198. Traitor

199. Illness

200. Murderer

201. Casino

202. Piercing

203. Lily

204. Lunacy

205. Rosary

206. Vanilla

207. Dark Horse

208. Blink

209. Red Lipstick

210. Demons

211. Tool

212. Ocean

213. Stench

214. Firefly

215. November

216. Riddle

217. Batteries

218. Teenager

219. Are You Serious?

220. One Night Stand

221. Shipment

222. Set Sail

223. A Spoonful of Sugar Makes The Lies Go Down

224. Devoting

225. Doe Eyes

226. Welcome to Hell

227. See You in Hell

228. Go Down Fighting

229. All I Believe In

230. Stars

231. Quaint

232. The Day After Tomorrow

233. Legen - Wait For It - dary

234. Patient Zero

235. Zero

236. Doodles in the Rain

237. Forbidden

238. Touching the Clouds

239. Sunburn

240. Kisses on Your Shoulders

241. Goodnight

242. Video Game

243. Comfort

244. Don’t Wait Up

245. Graveyard

246. Parasite

247. Trust Me

248. You’ll Be Safe Here

249. Queen

250. King

251. Princess

252. Prince

253. I Owe You

254. Wolf

255. Grin

256. Russian Roulette

257. Mercy

258. Noise

259. Error

260. Summer Haze

261. Winter Fling

262. All That Glitters

263. Rusty

264. Curiosity Killed The Cat

265. Satisfaction Brought Me Back

266. Smell the Roses

267. Healing

268. She Found Me In The Bookstore

269. Computer

270. Write to Me

271. Dying To Know

272. Trivial

273. Reality Leaves A Horrible Taste Sometimes

274. Distant Relative

275. One Foot in the Water

276. Rumpled Sheets

277. Message In A Bottle

278. He’s No Saint

279. Meaning of the Word Lie

280. Morphine

281. Plastic Chairs

282. Kitten Heels

283. Stitches

284. Almost

285. Fire Fuck

286. Because I Wanted You To Be

287. After All This Time?

288. Flash A Smile

289. He Has A New Camera

290. Be Polite

291. A Thousand Memories

292. Fair Enough

293. The Other Side

294. Skeletons In The Closet

295. Never Too Late

296. You Are My Music

297. The Morning and Evening Star

298. Bubble Gum

299. Silk Scarf

300. Prologue

301. Epilogue

302. One More Step and You’ll Fall

303. Bricks

304. Costume Party

305. Burning Sensation

306. Mischief Managed

307. Hero By Definition

308. A Little Dance, A Little Romance, That’s How She Rolls

309. Like A Moth To A Flame

310. What A Snake!

311. He Said, She Said

312. Citrus

313. Wheat Fields

314. You Ever Wonder...?

315. Gone With The Wind

316. Breathe Again

317. Backstabber

318. Sweet Emotion

319. Hello Darkness My Old Friend

320. Whatever You Want To Believe Dear

321. A Dance With The Devil

322. Lacrimosa (latin for Weeping)

323. Ace of Spades

324. They Kept Their Promises

325. Break me

326. Interlaced Fingers

327. We Wasted Time Throwing Rocks At The Stars 

328. Just Look Down

329. Don’t Even Blink

330. If Rivers Could Speak

331. What Do You Think They Said?

332. That Little Envelope

333. Poor Unfortunate Soul

334. The Little Death

335. Shake On It

336. Feels So Damn Good

337. The Sky Is Dancing

338. Homely

339. Keep Me Company?

340. Endlessly, She Said

341. Kiss and Control

342. Role Play

343. Discussions

344. Details, Details

345. Tape Recorder

346. Time is what a Tragedy Feels Like

347. Sweetheart, You Are Sadly Mistaken

348. Horror Movies

349. Play Date

350. I Caught Myself

351. As You Wish

352. Endings Without Stories

353. Runs In The Family

354. Louder Than Thunder

355. Thank God I’m Pretty

356. Red and Black

357. Promise

358. Grave

359. A Stolen Ring

360. Penis Flytrap

361. Bridesmaid

362. Sandpaper

363. Dried Flowers

364. Learning French

365. Loose Necktie

366. Smell The Roses

367. All Dolled Up

368. Little Owl

369. Sleep, Sweetie

370. Dancing With A Liar

371. Let The Flames Begin

372. They Kept Their Promises

373. Love is Candy Crush

374. S/He’s Your Problem Now

[williamlwolf89]

Stuck? Try These 72 Creative Writing Prompts (+ 6 Bonus Tips)

I bet you just asked Google to search for creative writing prompts.

Or was it writing ideas? Short story ideas? Or maybe writer’s block?

Boy, are you stuck!

But don’t worry. It doesn’t matter if you’re halfway through writing a book, sweating over social media posts, or journaling about your own life, all writers get stuck for creative ideas sometimes.

So, it’s great to have you here.

This is your go-to source of story starters, writing prompts, and bonus writing tips guaranteed to improve your writing skills, power up your passion, and get your creative juices flowing in 2020.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Writing Prompts Q&A

72 Writing Prompts (Broken into Categories)

6 Bonus Tips (to Sharpen Your Writing Skills)

We’ll start with a few common questions and answers…

What are Writing Prompts?

A writing prompt can be a phrase, an image, or even a physical object that kick starts your imagination and motivates you to write. It provides a spark of an idea as a starting point to stimulate a natural flow of writing.

Writing prompts are ideal for any form of writing, like fiction or nonfiction, journaling, copywriting, blogging, or poetry. They usually contain two parts: an idea or a potential topic to write about, and the instructions on what you should do next.

For example, a creative writing prompt for fiction writers might be:

Your main character has a car accident and starts to hear voices while in the hospital. Write a short story about the conflict between the character and the voices and what really happened at the time of the car accident.

While journal prompts tend to focus on topics of self-awareness, such as:

Write about a turning point in your life. How different would things be now if you had made a different decision at the time?

What is the Purpose of Writing Prompts?

Writing prompts are like a pre-match warm-up. They help to relax your creative muscles, unblock your imagination, and free up your mind to focus on the main game of writing without fear or hesitation.

Instead of wasting time by thinking of a topic to write about, writing prompts get your creative juices flowing straight away, compelling you to put pen to paper.

Writing prompts also help you see things in a new light. They force you to think outside your comfort zone and use your imagination and creativity like never before.

Without them, we can become permanently sidelined by our inner critic. Or worse still, the gripping cramp of writer’s block.

How Do You Use Writing Prompts?

Like all muscle-building exercises, writing prompts are most effective when you make them a daily habit. Over time, with repetition, you’ll find your flow of writing becomes more natural, and your ability to write for longer strengthens.

But don’t feel you have to follow a prompt to the letter. If the prompt suggests you write about romance, but it sparks an idea for a poem, write a poem. Let your imagination guide you through the writing process.

Here are some other hot tips:

Don’t overthink it. Just start writing.

Don’t edit as you go.

If it’s not working for your style of writing, move on to another prompt. Find the prompts that make you want to write.

The creative writing prompt is a starting point. The finish is up to you. You don’t have to write a complete story, a poem, or an essay. Feel free to discard your work halfway through and move on to something else.

Adopt the Ernest Hemingway approach: Accept that most of what you write is likely to be crap, and you’re going to toss it. This isn’t about producing ready-to-publish work for your latest freelance writing job. It’s about the practice of writing.

How Else Can I Improve My Creative Writing Skills?

Improving your skills takes lots of writing practice. And using creative writing prompts is one of the best ways to do just that. But it’s not the only way. Here are a few other techniques you might want to explore:

Freewriting

This is when you write about anything that pops into your head. Take a blank page, set a timer for 30 minutes, and start writing. Write whatever your brain tells you to, and don’t worry if it’s nonsensical.

This writing exercise is great for pushing through writer’s block and allowing your mind to head off in spontaneous directions.

The Adjectives Game

List 5 things you like or dislike tasting, and then list 5 adjectives for each item. For example, you might like the taste of cake. The 5 adjectives might be: sweet, gooey, yummy, nutty, and scrumptious. Now do the same for your other senses.

This builds your sensory vocabulary and ability to write with flair and color.

Perspectives

Write about a recent incident you were involved in, from the point of view of someone else who was involved. Empathy is hugely important in writing and this exercise forces you to step into the shoes of another person and understand their point of view.

Dialogue

Writing authentic dialogue is notoriously hard to master, so this writing exercise will help.

Write about 300 words of a conversation between two people without using ‘he said/she said’ tags. Show the difference and relationship between the two speakers only through the words they use. It’s more challenging than it sounds.

Observation

Think of a color. Now go for a walk or a ride on the bus and note down everything you see of that color. When you get home, write up what you remember (take notes as you go to make it easier).

How many different hues of the color did you see? What did the things you saw make you feel? Was there any connection between them?

Brevity

Think of an anecdote you like to recount. Write it up in less than 500 words. Now rewrite the same story in 100 words. Now in 50 words. And finally, in 25 words or less, if you can achieve it.

This exercise shows how filler words, background, and context can sometimes get in the way of a good story. It will help you choose your words carefully.

If you’ve got the time and energy, here are a few more exercises to really help flex those writing muscles.

Now, let’s explore those creative writing prompts we promised you.

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72 Writing Prompts to Help You Kickstart Your Imagination

Fiction Writing Prompts

Fantasy Writing Prompts

Romance Writing Prompts

Comedy Writing Prompts

Horror Writing Prompts

Persuasive Copywriting Prompts

Poetry Writing Prompts

Journal Writing Prompts

Blog Writing Prompts

Non-Fiction Writing Prompts

Random Writing Prompts

Fiction Writing Prompts

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Use this famous opening line to start your own novel.

Rewrite your resume as a short story, either in the first or third person.

Open the dictionary at any page and select the first word that catches your eye. Write the opening few paragraphs of a thriller using that word at least three times.

Write a synopsis of your version of the movie, Groundhog Day. What would your day look like and why?

Write a short story using these words: Mountainous, parched, field mouse, time travel, and Black Forest Gateau.

Sit in a café and write a short story about the person or couple at the next table. Take note of their body language and clothing, what they’re eating, or doing. And if you can eavesdrop, let their conversation inspire you too.

Write about a person who is arrested for committing a crime, but they can’t remember anything about the night the crime occurred. What is the crime, why can’t they remember and what happens next?

Fantasy Writing Prompts

If you could come back to life as any person, animal or thing, what or who would you be and how would you live your second life?

The world’s oceans dry up. Who or what survives?

You open the bathroom door and find the room’s disappeared. In its place is another world. Describe what you see and hear, and what you do next?

You’re sitting at a bar talking to a giraffe. What’s the conversation about?

You live in a fantasy world where people communicate without talking. Write about an average day in this sci-fi, fairy tale world.

You are the inventor of a popular video game. One day the main character from your game knocks on your front door. What does he want?

Write about a character who has a superhuman power. The problem is, they don’t want it. Write about the conflict between the character, his or her power and the everyday life they are forced to lead.

Romance Writing Prompts

What is the most romantic season of the year and why?

 Write a story about love at first sight. It doesn’t have to be about young people, or even about people.

 “Last Christmas” was a song by George Michael that inspired a movie by the same name in 2019. Think of your favorite romantic song and write a film synopsis for it.

If you are a woman, write a short love story about the most romantic experience you could imagine, as a man. If you are a man, reverse the exercise.

The song “Summer Nights” from Grease is about the summer romance between two high school students, with their friends begging to hear more. What memory does that evoke for you about the first time you fell in love, and who did you tell?

Next time you visit a grocery store make a note of the first person you see. What are they wearing, what are they buying, are they alone? Write a description of them as the main character for your next romantic novel.

Your protagonist is about to marry the man she has been in love with for years. A week before the wedding she meets a stranger and falls madly and hopelessly in love. What does she do?

Comedy Writing Prompts

You are a bartender on a quiet night, listening to man drown his sorrows as he tells you how his wife has recently left him for a neighbor. A second man enters and sits at the other end of the bar. It’s the neighbor. Describe the comedy of errors that happens next.

What makes you laugh out loud?

What’s the funniest joke you know? Write the backstory to the main character in the joke.

What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you in real-life? Write it as a stand-up comedy anecdote with lots of observational humor thrown in.

Your shopping bag rips apart, and all the contents tumble out at the feet of the girl or guy who lives in the apartment below you, who you have fancied for some time. What does your shopping reveal about you and why are you so embarrassed?

List posts are one of the most popular forms of blogging. Write a funny list post about all the things you are not going to do in 2020.

Horror Writing Prompts?

Write the opening chapter to a story that begins: “I stared at my beautiful, evil wife and realized the horror had only just begun.

 “Terror made me cruel” is a line from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Write about a situation where terror might make you cruel.

You’re walking home alone late one night when you realize several cats are stalking you. Then the streetlights go out. What happens next?

There’s a locked door at the top of the house you’re staying in. What’s behind it?

What are you really, really scared of? Put yourself in that situation and describe how it feels.

Write a horror story set in either a bar or a graveyard (or both). Include a blue-veined hand, a serial killer, and the phrase “all that spit and sweat.”

Persuasive Copywriting Prompts

Your best friend doesn’t much care for Chinese food. Write down all the reasons why they need to reconsider their opinion and join you tonight at your favorite Chinese restaurant.

Your mother’s always nagging you to clean your room. Write an account of the last time she nagged you, but from her point of view.

Have you ever seen a ghost, or sensed a ghostly presence? Write an account of your experience knowing it will be read by a skeptic.

Talk the Christmas Grinch out of being a Grinch.

A man finds a letter in a bottle while walking on the beach. Where has the bottle come from, how old is it, and what does the letter say? What does it compel the man to do?

Think of a cliché and write an argument against it. Here are a few to start you off:

Time heals all wounds

It’s better to be safe than sorry

Money is the root of all evil

Ignorance is bliss

Poetry Writing Prompts

Open the dictionary at any page and select the first word that catches your eye. Set a timer for 5 minutes and write a list of rhyming words. Now write a poem using as many of those words as you can.

Write a poem about rhythm. It might be about music, or the flow of a river, or the clattering sound of a train. Weave the rhythm you hear in your head into the tempo of your poem.

Write a poem about a feast. Describe how it looks, smells and tastes. Include the different sensations of spices and flavors, the texture and feel of the dishes and how each one made you feel as you ate more and more.

 Write a poem about the “Thrilla in Manila.”

Journal Writing Prompts

Write about your plans for tomorrow and how you hope they’ll turn out.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.” This is a famous quote about self-sacrifice from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Write an honest journal entry about how far you would be prepared to go to sacrifice your wealth, happiness, health, or safety for a person or principle.

Write about a single day — either the first or last of your life.

Think about the last time you woke up at 4am, in a cold sweat. What was on your mind and how did you resolve it? Did you feel differently about it in the daylight?

Write a letter in your journal to each of your family members, telling them what your love (and/or hate) about them.

What is your personal manifesto? What are the core principles and values that guide everything you do in life?

Make a list of all the things you’d like to say no to, and then write down the reasons why you don’t — or can’t — say no. Is there a pattern? Is there something you can change?

Blog Writing Prompts

Write about the biggest challenge you have faced and how you overcame it.

Write an open letter to a person or group of people you strongly disagree with and explain why. Use reason not emotion.

Write about the best writing or weight loss tips you can share.

Interview your favorite fictional character.

Describe social media to someone who has never heard of it before. Include advice on which platform might be best for them.

Think of the 3 most unhealthy habits you indulge in and write about how you might be able to break those habits.

What are the top 10 style trends you would like to see make a comeback in 2020?

Further Reading: 255 Blog Post Ideas That’ll Tantalize Your Readers in 2020 by Annaliese Henwood

Non-Fiction Writing Prompts

Write about your views on climate change. Are you a believer or a skeptic? Is the world doing enough? What facts do you know?

Write about a time you had to swallow your pride and do something that made you uncomfortable, either morally or physically.

There is no such thing as a truly unselfish deed. Defend this statement.

If you were to write an autobiography, how would it start?

Random Writing Prompts

Write a fantasy story based on the last dream you had.

Write about your favorite place and how it makes you feel. Use all the sensory language you can muster to describe the place.

If you were a dog, what type would you be and who would own you?

If you had the opportunity to turn back time what would you change about the course of your life and why?

What is your favorite thing to eat and what memories does it evoke?

Write a list of your three most prized possessions (inanimate objects, not people or animals). Imagine you are forced to discard one. Which one would it be and explain the reasons for your choice?

Write your own eulogy as a diary entry. What would you like people to know and say about you?

Write 500 words on what financial freedom looks like to you?

Select a book from your bookshelf and open it to any page. Write out the last sentence of the last complete paragraph on that page and continue writing.

Think of your favorite book or film. Now rewrite the ending to something completely different.

If you were to buy a plane ticket today — no expense spared — where would you go and why?

There they are. A compact list of 72 writing prompts. And when you’ve worked your way through these, you might want to move on to the motherlode of creative writing prompts over at Reddit.

Reddit is part social media platform, part community, part media curator, with 520 million monthly visitors subscribing to message boards across 1.2 million sub-categories. Phew!

One of these subcategories is Writing Prompts, with over 14 million subscribers who have posted years’ worth of prompts, so you’ll never run out of inspiration again.

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6 Bonus Writing Tips to Power Up Your Passion and Sharpen Your Skills

Before we let you go…

If you’re looking for creative writing prompts or story ideas, there’s an excellent chance you’re looking for other ways to hone your skills and improve your craft.

Here are 6 bonus writing tips to help you on your journey:

1. Make Time to Write

If you’re not setting aside time to write, you may as well ignore every other piece of advice in this post. Make your writing time sacred and block it off in your calendar. Turn off your phone. Disconnect the internet, close your door, and write.

This is the single best thing you can do if you want to be a writer.

2. Set Writing Goals

We set goals for everything in our life: losing weight, saving for a dream holiday, growing our business, and so on. So, do the same for your writing. Measure your progress.

Start with, say, a 300 or 500 word count in a daily session. Once you consistently reach this goal with ease, up the ante and shoot for more challenging targets. 1,000 words a session; 25,000 words a month, and so on. But make sure your goals are not overwhelming.

Writing goals will help you write faster and with more confidence. Over time you will recognize when you are most productive and can use this to your advantage.

3. Pack Your Writing with a Powerful Punch

Fill your writing with passion from an arsenal of power words. Or supercharge your reader’s imagination with a well-aimed metaphor.

Use these two writing devices to turbocharge your prose and watch the words burst off the page with intention.

4. Harness the Power of Grammar

Grammar reduces confusion and brings clarity and confidence to your writing. It’s a good thing and you need to learn the rules.

But grammar can sometimes get in the way of creativity and turn fluid prose into a turgid swamp of clunky awkwardness.

If starting a sentence with a conjunction feels right, go for it. If you want to brazenly split an infinitive to avoid mangling a sentence, split away.

So, learn the grammar rules, but then learn how to break them. Effectively.

5. Copy Your Writing Heroes — Literally

Pick a writer you’ve always admired, even envied. Now, put pen to paper and rewrite exactly what they wrote by hand. Don’t think too hard about it. Just go with it.

As you write out their words, you’ll absorb their writing style, their pace and rhythm, their grammar, their word choice, and their sentence structure.

This is one of the most effective ways to sharpen your writing skills and inspire your own writing voice.

6. Read Your Way to Writing Stardom

Every great writer is a great reader. There are no exceptions.

Read daily.

Read fiction and biographies, or read books, blogs and articles. But read in an active way. Stay alert to what grabs your attention and how the writer has crafted his words. Then consciously apply the best techniques to your own writing process.

A Final Word on Writing Prompts

The purpose of a writing prompt is to kickstart your creativity and spur you into writing something… anything.

Initially, the process may seem a little intimidating. But that’s OK. Most writers draw a blank when they first start with writing prompts.

Keep pushing through, because something thrilling will start to happen.

The more you practice using the prompts in this post, the more your creative juices will flow, and the more words and ideas will start pouring out of you.

So, let yourself go. Abandon yourself to the power of writing prompts and let the magic happen.

Happy writing!

The post Stuck? Try These 72 Creative Writing Prompts (+ 6 Bonus Tips) appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/creative-writing-prompts/

[ramialkarmi]

A new show features ‘Biggest Loser’ winners who regained weight — and reveals a deeper truth about weight loss

The truth hit Ryan Benson when he couldn’t fit into a seat on his son’s favorite roller coaster: He’d regained the weight he’d fought so hard to lose as a contestant on "The Biggest Loser."

In 2005, Benson was crowned the first winner of the popular TV show, which ran for 12 years and has since ballooned into a multi-million-dollar franchise. Benson lost 122 pounds and won $250,000, but he's since returned to his pre-show weight.

That problem wasn't unique to Benson — a 2016 study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) followed more than a dozen former “Biggest Losers” and  found that of the 14 people studied, 13 regained a significant portion of the weight they lost on the show. Four were heavier in 2016 than they were before they set foot on the set.

Experts have various takes on why this happened, blaming everything from inevitable biological factors to the show’s shaming approach to weight loss. But the show's producer, JD Roth, argues that anyone can push themselves to slim down by breaking what he calls “bad behaviors.”

To that end, Roth has produced a new show called “The Big Fat Truth," which is set to premiere June 11. The program seeks to highlight "bad" behaviors and mentalities that it suggests are responsible for participants' weight gain. In one episode, six former “Biggest Losers" — including Benson— return and try to lose some of the weight they've regained.

“They all say the same thing,” Roth says of the contestants. “They say ‘I went back to my old behavior and made bad decisions.’”

But nutritionists and dietitians counter that Roth’s new show is another version of what they see as a dangerous approach to weight loss that favors quick results over science. As with many things in the world of health and nutrition, the truth falls somewhere in between.

From 300 to 175 to 325

After spending five grueling months exercising and dieting as a "Biggest Loser" contestant, the first thing Benson did to celebrate his accomplishment was order a burger and fries.

“In my mind I just thought I’ve been training so hard I want to eat something I craved for a few months — a burger, fries, some ribs,” Benson tells Business Insider. “That was one of the things that propelled me to the finish line. I thought, when I’m done I’m going to get this. It was a reward.”

Within weeks of returning home, the clothes Benson had worn during the show's season finale seemed to shrink. He caught himself stopping by his favorite fast-food chain more and more on the way home from work to appease his appetite for the foods he missed.

“It was real easy to slip back into old habits,” he says. “The cameras aren’t on 24/7 so no one’s going to see you pick up four donuts on the way to work.”

The NIH study of "Biggest Losers" — along with a New York Times feature story on the research — suggested that slimming down for good is virtually a biological impossibility for people who have been significantly overweight. Despite forcing their bodies to shed pounds in an intense 3-month boot camp, most of the show's participants seemed to succumb to powerful hormonal and metabolic forces that were out of their control.

“The key point is that you can be on TV, you can lose enormous amounts of weight, you can go on for six years, but you can’t get away from a basic biological reality,” Michael Schwartz, an obesity and diabetes researcher at the University of Washington, told the Times last year. “As long as you are below your initial weight, your body is going to try to get you back.”

Studies suggest that people who've lost significant amounts of weight produce fewer of the hormones that make human bodies feel full and more of the hormones that make us feel hungry. There’s evidence that the metabolism also slows down, perhaps because strict dieting convinces the body that it is starving, leading it to run as efficiently as it can and burn the fewest calories possible.

Roth has spent the past 15 years working on reality TV shows about weight loss, but rejects this idea. 

“I just don’t believe that that’s true,” he says of the Times’ suggestion that it might be biologically impossible for some people to keep weight off. “It’s different behavioral things. A lot of times emotional reasons are why you gain the weight back. There are so many factors that go with it.”

Heart hunger 

Roth blames Benson's weight gain on the fact that he fell prey to old habits.

“People start to get comfortable, sort of like how you might get a job you’ve really been working hard towards, and then after you get it you say to yourself, ‘Oh I knew I’d get that job.’ And they start accepting over and over again.”

The new show is in part a response to criticisms from some registered dietitians and nutritionists, who suggested the restrictive regimen imposed by “The Biggest Loser" failed to address what may be potential emotional and psychological issues connected to weight gain.

“If someone is using food as escapism or as comfort from emotional trauma, you have to deal with that," says Andy Bellatti, a registered dietitian and the cofounder of Dietitians for Professional Integrity. "That takes time and that takes a very qualified professional to help you get to the bottom of that. That has nothing to do with weight loss tips or Bob Harper telling you to run an extra mile.”

Nichola Whitehead, a nutritionist and registered dietitian with a private practice in the United Kingdom, calls emotional eating “heart hunger.”

“Food won’t satisfy heart hunger in the long-term,” she says. “It can’t solve the underlying problem.”

Whitehead advises her clients to take a closer look at when and why they eat certain foods to see if certain feelings drive specific eating behaviors.

“So being aware of what you’re craving — are you craving chocolate because you’ve just seen it?" Whitehead says. "Do you just need to relocate or move the chocolate inside a cupboard? Are you feeling emotional? Is something else going on? Is it a good time to call a friend to talk or maybe take a walk?”

Safe, sustainable weight loss

When Roth got involved with “The Biggest Loser,” he says he assumed he could get contestants to lose about 100 pounds over the 5-month window of the show. When he talked to doctors, however, they told him that participants should only be losing one to two pounds per week. That figure, which exercise physiologists and registered dietitians agree is a good ballpark number for safe, sustainable weight loss, would mean that contestants could only lose about 30 pounds by the show’s end.

Roth says the network told him that number simply wouldn’t work for TV. So season after season, the show’s contestants lost one to two pounds per day — essentially seven times what doctors had said was healthy.

Experts say such rapid weight loss doesn’t give people enough time to create new healthy eating and exercise patterns.

“You’ve got to give yourself two, three, four years of consistent behavioral changes. That is hard work. You’re building new habits. And that takes time,” Bellatti says.

Roth's new show seems to accept this logic — to some degree. In one scene, he visits Benson at home and sends him out to pick up a fast food dinner in the time Roth says it'll take to prepare a vegan meal. When Benson returns with a bag of fried chicken sandwiches for his family, Roth has a fresh pasta and vegetable dish ready for them to eat.

Roth believes that showing Benson how easy it is to cook a healthy meal will spur him to change his behavior.

“I’m not a doctor or an exercise physiologist, but that said I have more experience in this area than most people have,” Roth says. “I live it.”

This one-off example may be enough to prompt some people to change their behavior. But for many of those who struggle with weight, long-term behavioral changes are grueling. Results don't come quickly, and many people simply give up.

“I’ve seen it a lot with people I work with,” says Bellatti. “I’d say nine times out of 10 the people who change slowly and do manageable goals are the people who three years out still have success. I know many people who’ve gone on some kind of crash diet for a week and lose a bunch of weight and a few months later they’re back to square one.”

Building new habits

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association illustrates just how hard sticking to a diet can be. For the study, 160 adults spent two years on one of four popular diets. For the first two months, they had to adhere to the diet fairly strictly; for the rest of the time, they were told they could be as strict or lenient as they wanted.

At the end, everyone who'd kept up with the eating plans had lost some weight and seen moderate improvements in their heart health. But a lot of people didn’t make it to the end — in one group, more than half of the participants dropped out.

“A variety of popular diets can reduce weight and several cardiac risk factors under realistic clinical conditions, but only for the minority of individuals who can sustain a high dietary adherence level,” the study authors write. “No single diet produced satisfactory adherence rates.”

In other words, as registered dietitian nutritionist Kara Lydon likes to say, “Diets don’t work.”

It’s a finding that squares with what many dietitians recommend — that the best eating plan is simply the one you can stick with.

“If you don’t take the time to help somebody set up realistic, sustainable behaviors that they can keep up over time, gaining weight and going back into old habits is inevitable,” says Bellatti.

For many people, losing weight means committing to a different lifestyle — one that in large part is not supported by the dietary options made available to us.

“We live in a society where making healthy choices and being at a healthy weight, it’s not defaulted toward that," says Bellatti. "Unhealthy foods are cheaper and they’re everywhere; if you go to any store, you can buy a candy bar at the checkout but not a piece of fruit.” 

Nevertheless, he maintains that losing weight and keeping it off is possible.

“It can be very challenging, and you need to stay on top of a lot of things, but I know a good number of people who’ve lost a significant amount of weight over a long time.”

Ryan Benson says his experience on Roth’s new show did encourage him to make changes to his diet and lifestyle. But he’s also made use of several tools outside of the show’s guidelines, such as learning how to prepare healthy food and becoming involved in the healthy food scene in his Los Angeles neighborhood.

“I think [“The Big Fat Truth”] set me on the right path,” says Benson, though he adds, “it’s a lifetime struggle.”

SEE ALSO: Americans have been making a huge diet mistake for 100 years — here's what they should do instead

DON'T MISS: 13 diet 'truths' that are doing more harm than good

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The pros and cons of drinking protein shakes after a workout

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Stuck? Try These 72 Creative Writing Prompts (+ 6 Bonus Tips)

I bet you just asked Google to search for creative writing prompts.

Or was it writing ideas? Story ideas? Or maybe writer’s block?

Boy, are you stuck!

But don’t worry. It doesn’t matter if you’re halfway through writing a book, sweating over social media posts, or journaling about your own life, all writers get stuck for creative ideas sometimes.

So, it’s great to have you here.

This is your go-to source of story starters, writing prompts, and bonus writing tips guaranteed to improve your writing skills, power up your passion, and get your creative juices flowing in 2020.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Writing Prompts Q&A

72 Writing Prompts (Broken into Categories)

6 Bonus Tips (to Sharpen Your Writing Skills)

We’ll start with a few common questions and answers.

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What are Writing Prompts?

A writing prompt can be a phrase, an image, or even a physical object that kick starts your imagination and motivates you to write. It provides a spark of an idea as a starting point to stimulate a natural flow of writing.

Writing prompts are ideal for any form of writing, like fiction or nonfiction, journaling, copywriting, blogging, or poetry. They usually contain two parts: an idea or a potential topic to write about, and the instructions on what you should do next.

For example, a creative writing prompt for fiction writers might be:

Your main character has a car accident and starts to hear voices while in the hospital. Write a short story about the conflict between the character and the voices and what really happened at the time of the car accident.

While journal prompts tend to focus on topics of self-awareness, such as:

Write about a turning point in your life. How different would things be now if you had made a different decision at the time?

What is the Purpose of Writing Prompts?

Writing prompts are like a pre-match warm-up. They help to relax your creative muscles, unblock your imagination, and free up your mind to focus on the main game of writing without fear or hesitation.

Instead of wasting time by thinking of a topic to write about, writing prompts get your creative juices flowing straight away, compelling you to put pen to paper.

Writing prompts also help you see things in a new light. They force you to think outside your comfort zone and use your imagination and creativity like never before.

Without them, we can become permanently sidelined by our inner critic. Or worse still, the gripping cramp of writer’s block.

How Do You Use Writing Prompts?

Like all muscle-building exercises, writing prompts are most effective when you make them a daily habit. Over time, with repetition, you’ll find your flow of writing becomes more natural, and your ability to write for longer strengthens.

But don’t feel you have to follow a prompt to the letter. If the prompt suggests you write about romance, but it sparks an idea for a poem, write a poem. Let your imagination guide you through the writing process.

Here are some other hot tips:

Don’t overthink it. Just start writing.

Don’t edit as you go.

If it’s not working for your style of writing, move on to another prompt. Find the prompts that make you want to write.

The creative writing prompt is a starting point. The finish is up to you. You don’t have to write a complete story, a poem, or an essay. Feel free to discard your work halfway through and move on to something else.

Adopt the Ernest Hemingway approach: Accept that most of what you write is likely to be crap, and you’re going to toss it. This isn’t about producing ready-to-publish work for your latest freelance writing job. It’s about the practice of writing.

How Else Can I Improve My Creative Writing Skills?

Improving your skills takes lots of writing practice. And using creative writing prompts is one of the best ways to do just that. But it’s not the only way. Here are a few other techniques you might want to explore:

Freewriting

This is when you write about anything that pops into your head. Take a blank sheet of paper, set a timer for 30 minutes, and start writing. Write whatever your brain tells you to, and don’t worry if it’s nonsensical.

This exercise is great for pushing through writer’s block and allowing your mind to head off in spontaneous directions.

The Adjectives Game

List 5 things you like or dislike tasting, and then list 5 adjectives for each item. For example, you might like the taste of cake. The 5 adjectives might be: sweet, gooey, yummy, nutty, and scrumptious. Now do the same for your other senses.

This builds your sensory vocabulary and ability to write with flair and color.

Perspectives

Write about a recent incident you were involved in, from the point of view of someone else who was involved. Empathy is hugely important in writing and this exercise forces you to step into the shoes of another person and understand their point of view.

Dialogue

Writing authentic dialogue is notoriously hard to master, so this exercise will help.

Write about 300 words of a conversation between two people without using ‘he said/she said’ tags. Show the difference and relationship between the two speakers only through the words they use. It’s more challenging than it sounds.

Observation

Think of a color. Now go for a walk or a ride on the bus and note down everything you see of that color. When you get home, write up what you remember (take notes as you go to make it easier).

How many different hues of the color did you see? What did the things you saw make you feel? Was there any connection between them?

Brevity

Think of an anecdote you like to recount. Write it up in less than 500 words. Now rewrite the same story in 100 words. Now in 50 words. And finally, in 25 words or less, if you can achieve it.

This exercise shows how filler words, background, and context can sometimes get in the way of a good story. It will help you choose your words carefully.

If you’ve got the time and energy, here are a few more exercises to really help flex those writing muscles.

Now, let’s explore those creative writing prompts we promised you.

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72 Writing Prompts to Help You Kickstart Your Imagination

Fantasy Writing Prompts

Romance Writing Prompts

Comedy Writing Prompts

Horror Writing Prompts

Persuasive Copywriting Prompts

Poetry Writing Prompts

Journal Writing Prompts

Blog Writing Prompts

Non-Fiction Writing Prompts

Random Writing Prompts

Fiction Writing Prompts

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Use this famous opening line to start your own novel.

Rewrite your resume as a short story, either in the first or third person.

Open the dictionary at any page and select the first word that catches your eye. Write the opening few paragraphs of a thriller using that word at least three times.

Write a synopsis of your version of the movie, Groundhog Day. What would your day look like and why?

Write a short story using these words: Mountainous, parched, field mouse, and Black Forest Gateau.

Sit in a café and write a short story about the person or couple at the next table. Take note of their body language and clothing, what they’re eating, or doing. And if you can eavesdrop, let their conversation inspire you too.

Write about a person who is arrested for committing a crime, but they can’t remember anything about the night the crime occurred. What is the crime, why can’t they remember and what happens next?

Fantasy Writing Prompts

If you could come back to life as any person, animal or thing, what or who would you be and how would you live your second life?

The world’s oceans dry up. Who or what survives?

You open the bathroom door and find the room’s disappeared. In its place is another world. Describe what you see and hear, and what you do next?

You’re sitting at a bar talking to a giraffe. What’s the conversation about?

You live in a fantasy world where people communicate without talking. Write about an average day in this sci-fi world.

You are the inventor of a popular video game. One day the main character from your game knocks on your front door. What does he want?

Write about a character who has a superhuman power. The problem is, they don’t want it. Write about the conflict between the character, his or her power and the life they are forced to lead.

Romance Writing Prompts

What is the most romantic season of the year and why?

 Write a story about love at first sight. It doesn’t have to be about young people, or even about people.

 “Last Christmas” was a song by George Michael that inspired a movie by the same name in 2019. Think of your favorite romantic song and write a film synopsis for it.

If you are a woman, write a short love story about the most romantic experience you could imagine, as a man. If you are a man, reverse the exercise.

The song “Summer Nights” from Grease is about the summer romance between two high school students, with their friends begging to hear more. What memory does that evoke for you about the first time you fell in love, and who did you tell?

Next time you visit a grocery store make a note of the first person you see. What are they wearing, what are they buying, are they alone? Write a description of them as the main character for your next romantic novel.

Your protagonist is about to marry the man she has been in love with for years. A week before the wedding she meets a stranger and falls madly and hopelessly in love. What does she do?

Comedy Writing Prompts

You are a bartender on a quiet night, listening to man drown his sorrows as he tells you how his wife has recently left him for a neighbor. A second man enters and sits at the other end of the bar. It’s the neighbor. Describe the comedy of errors that happens next.

What makes you laugh out loud?

What’s the funniest joke you know? Write the backstory to the main character in the joke.

What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you in real-life? Write it as a stand-up comedy anecdote with lots of observational humor thrown in.

Your shopping bag rips apart, and all the contents tumble out at the feet of the girl or guy who lives in the apartment below you, who you have fancied for some time. What does your shopping reveal about you and why are you so embarrassed?

List posts are one of the most popular forms of blogging. Write a funny list post about all the things you are not going to do in 2020.

Horror Writing Prompts?

Write the opening chapter to a story that begins: “I stared at my beautiful, evil wife and realized the horror had only just begun.

 “Terror made me cruel” is a line from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Write about a situation where terror might make you cruel.

You’re walking home alone late one night when you realize several cats are stalking you. Then the streetlights go out. What happens next?

There’s a locked door at the top of the house you’re staying in. What’s behind it?

What are you really, really scared of? Put yourself in that situation and describe how it feels.

Write a horror story set in either a bar or a graveyard (or both). Include a blue-veined hand and the phrase “all that spit and sweat.”

Persuasive Copywriting Prompts

Your best friend doesn’t much care for Chinese food. Write down all the reasons why they need to reconsider their opinion and join you tonight at your favorite Chinese restaurant.

Your mother’s always nagging you to clean your room. Write an account of the last time she nagged you, but from her point of view.

Have you ever seen a ghost, or sensed a ghostly presence? Write an account of your experience knowing it will be read by a sceptic.

Talk the Christmas Grinch out of being a Grinch.

A man finds a letter in a bottle while walking on the beach. Where has the bottle come from, how old is it, and what does the letter say? What does it compel the man to do?

Think of a cliché and write an argument against it. Here are a few to start you off:

Time heals all wounds

It’s better to be safe than sorry

Money is the root of all evil

Ignorance is bliss

Poetry Writing Prompts

Open the dictionary at any page and select the first word that catches your eye. Set a timer for 5 minutes and write a list of rhyming words. Now write a poem using as many of those words as you can.

Write a poem about rhythm. It might be about music, or the flow of a river, or the clattering sound of a train. Weave the rhythm you hear in your head into the tempo of your poem.

Write a poem about a feast. Describe how it looks, smells and tastes. Include the different sensations of spices and flavors, the texture and feel of the dishes and how each one made you feel as you ate more and more.

 Write a poem about the “Thrilla in Manila.”

Journal Writing Prompts

Write about your plans for tomorrow and how you hope they’ll turn out.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.” This is a famous quote about self-sacrifice from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Write an honest journal entry about how far you would be prepared to go to sacrifice your wealth, happiness, health, or safety for a person or principle.

Write about a single day — either the first or last of your life.

Think about the last time you woke up at 4am, in a cold sweat. What was on your mind and how did you resolve it? Did you feel differently about it in the daylight?

Write a letter in your journal to each of your family members, telling them what your love (and/or hate) about them.

What is your personal manifesto? What are the core principles and values that guide everything you do in life?

Make a list of all the things you’d like to say no to, and then write down the reasons why you don’t — or can’t — say no. Is there a pattern? Is there something you can change?

Blog Writing Prompts

Write about the biggest challenge you have faced and how you overcame it.

Write an open letter to a person or group of people you strongly disagree with and explain why. Use reason not emotion.

Write about the best health or weight loss tips you can share.

Interview your favorite fictional character.

Describe social media to someone who has never heard of it before. Include advice on which platform might be best for them.

Think of the 3 most unhealthy habits you indulge in and write about how you might be able to break those habits.

What are the top 10 style trends you would like to see make a comeback in 2020?

Further Reading: 255 Blog Post Ideas That’ll Tantalize Your Readers in 2020 by Annaliese Henwood

Non-Fiction Writing Prompts

Write about your views on climate change. Are you a believer or a sceptic? Is the world doing enough? What facts do you know?

Write about a time you had to swallow your pride and do something that made you uncomfortable, either morally or physically.

There is no such thing as a truly unselfish deed. Defend this statement.

If you were to write an autobiography, how would it start?

Random Writing Prompts

Write a fantasy story based on the last dream you had.

Write about your favorite place and how it makes you feel. Use all the sensory language you can muster to describe the place.

If you were a dog, what type would you be and who would own you?

If you had the opportunity to turn back time what would you change about the course of your life and why?

What is your favorite thing to eat and what memories does it evoke?

Write a list of your three most prized possessions (inanimate objects, not people or animals). Imagine you are forced to discard one. Which one would it be and explain the reasons for your choice?

Write your own eulogy. What would you like people to know and say about you?

Write 500 words on what financial freedom looks like to you?

Select a book from your bookshelf and open it to any page. Write out the last sentence of the last complete paragraph on that page and continue writing.

Think of your favorite film or book. Now rewrite the ending to something completely different.

If you were to buy a plane ticket today — no expense spared — where would you go and why?

There they are. A compact list of 72 writing prompts. And when you’ve worked your way through these, you might want to move on to the motherlode of creative writing prompts over at Reddit.

Reddit is part social media platform, part community, part media curator, with 520 million monthly visitors subscribing to message boards across 1.2 million sub-categories. Phew!

One of these subcategories is Writing Prompts, with over 13.3 million subscribers who have posted years’ worth of prompts, so you’ll never run out of inspiration again.

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6 Bonus Writing Tips to Power Up Your Passion and Sharpen Your Skills

Before we let you go…

If you’re looking for creative writing prompts or story ideas, there’s an excellent chance you’re looking for other ways to hone your skills and improve your craft.

Here are 6 bonus writing tips to help you on your journey:

1. Make Time to Write

If you’re not setting aside time to write, you may as well ignore every other piece of advice in this post. Make your writing time sacred and block it off in your calendar. Turn off your phone. Disconnect the internet, close your door, and write.

This is the single best thing you can do if you want to be a writer.

2. Set Writing Goals

We set goals for everything in our life: losing weight, saving for a dream holiday, growing our business, and so on. So, do the same for your writing. Measure your progress.

Start with, say, 300 or 500 words in a daily session. Once you consistently reach this goal with ease, up the ante and shoot for more challenging targets. 1,000 words a session; 25,000 words a month, and so on. But make sure your goals are not overwhelming.

Goals will help you write faster, with more confidence. Over time you will recognize when you are most productive and can use this to your advantage.

3. Pack Your Writing with a Powerful Punch

Fill your writing with passion from an arsenal of power words. Or supercharge your reader’s imagination with a well-aimed metaphor.

Use these two writing devices to turbocharge your prose and watch the words burst off the page with intention.

4. Harness the Power of Grammar

Grammar reduces confusion and brings clarity and confidence to your writing. It’s a good thing and you need to learn the rules.

But grammar can sometimes get in the way of creativity and turn fluid prose into a turgid swamp of clunky awkwardness.

If starting a sentence with a conjunction feels right, go for it. If you want to brazenly split an infinitive to avoid mangling a sentence, split away.

So, learn the grammar rules, but then learn how to break them. Effectively.

5. Copy Your Writing Heroes — Literally

Pick a writer you’ve always admired, even envied. Now, put pen to paper and rewrite exactly what they wrote by hand. Don’t think too hard about it. Just go with it.

As you write out their words, you’ll absorb their writing style, their pace and rhythm, their grammar, their word choice, and their sentence structure.

This is one of the most effective ways to sharpen your writing skills and inspire your own writing voice.

6. Read Your Way to Writing Stardom

Every great writer is a great reader. There are no exceptions.

Read daily.

Read fiction and biographies, or read books, blogs and articles. But read in an active way. Stay alert to what grabs your attention and how the writer has crafted his words. Then consciously apply the best techniques to your own writing process.

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A Final Word on Writing Prompts

The purpose of a writing prompt is to kickstart your creativity and spur you into writing something… anything.

Initially, the process may seem a little intimidating. But that’s OK. Most writers draw a blank when they first start with writing prompts.

Keep pushing through, because something thrilling will start to happen.

The more you practice using the prompts in this post, the more your creative juices will flow, and the more words and ideas will start pouring out of you.

So, let yourself go. Abandon yourself to the power of writing prompts and let the magic happen.

Happy writing!

About the Author: Mel Wicks is a seasoned copywriter and newly minted digital nomad. She helps clients bring the ‘OMG! Where do I sign up?’ oomph to their online marketing; and blogs about the highs and lows of being a nomadic freelance writer.

The post Stuck? Try These 72 Creative Writing Prompts (+ 6 Bonus Tips) appeared first on Smart Blogger.

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