Found a weird trick for breaking through writer's block with old prompts

I kept staring at blank pages for hours until I tried pulling up prompts from 2018 on this sub. Took one about a detective who loses their memory and rewrote it as a coffee shop scene set in Portland. Something about the age of the prompt made it easier to twist into something new. Anyone else have luck recycling really old prompts from the archives?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordanr893d ago

Does the age make it feel less precious, so you take bigger risks with it?

lisa8202d ago

Kind of the opposite actually. Older stuff makes me more careful, not less. There's this weird thing where vintage pieces have already survived this long, so you don't want to be the one who finally breaks them. It's like they've earned a little extra respect. The cheap mass produced stuff from today, that feels easier to replace. I'll toss that around more freely because who cares if it snaps. But something with age and history, I treat it gentler, almost like it's fragile in a way new things aren't.