Prompts

"The Truth That Tells a Lie
The Lie a Truth Tells
The Lie That Tells Truth The
The Truth the Lie That Tells
The That Lie Tells a Truth
The That Lie Tells Truth
The Lie That Tells the Truth

The Lie That Tells a Truth"

This is the front cover of John Dufresne's book on writing.  It is a fantastic sequence of motivational material and prompts.  It sits directly to the right of my computer screen at home and I use it often.  I say this because I've been thinking about prompts lately.

A Pacific MFA student, Hannah Pass, passed (not an intentional repetition) along a link to Tin House's Plotto competition, which provides a prompt for flash fiction.  I followed the link casually.  I like to know what people are doing out there in the writing world, but I didn't really expect to enter.  After reading the prompt for the flash fiction piece (500 words or less), I decided I wanted to respond. 

I sat down with the prompt in mind and hammered out two different versions of a story that fit the contest's criteria.  The whole process maybe took an hour.  At the end, I felt great.  I had a whole story in front of me and the hour was probably one of the best I've spent all week in terms of honing my own craft.

This is the beauty of prompts.  They can be short, immediate, and, even, disposable.  I didn't put a lot of pressure on myself.  It didn't feel like the novel project; it felt like play.  The result, after a quick peer review and a dose of revision, was a quirky little compressed piece that I'm actually quite proud to have finished.  I've sent off the piece to the contest and will probably hear by next week if I won or not. 

I need to remember prompts.  They are a good palette cleanser.  They are a great reinvigorater.  I get a little too big for my britches sometimes and forget to practice my craft in the most sincere form of that word "practice."  There is nothing wrong with taken a few cuts at the batting cage and there is definitely nothing wrong with making a few strokes on the keyboard.