Update 4/6/11: In need of a prompt

[spacemutineer]

I've been craving pretty desperately to dive into a new short story, but so far have come up dry for good ideas. What I do have rolling around in my head is either too complex to make into something relatively short (sub 2000 words, I would hope) or just simply not kicking me into gear at the moment.

I've been trolling shkinkmeme for days for ideas, but that's been bone dry as well. Is there anywhere else to look for quality prompts? I have found little. I've been reading, hoping that would spark something for me, but so far nothing.

In the meantime while I search for something that really strikes me, I'm trying to fiddle with some partially written bits I came up with previously. Maybe one of them will catch for me. The first is actually (somewhat ludicrously) a western of all things. There have been a couple of prompts for westerns on the meme and since I love to try new genres, I've been tooling around with it. I like it to a degree, but currently it is long on atmosphere and short on plot. The other fragment I'm playing with is about Holmes as a scientist, which is an idea I am extremely attracted to. I think I have a good understanding of where I want to go with this one and I do like it quite a bit, but it's just not flowing for me at the moment. I'll try some stream-of-consciousness brainstorming today; see if I can't jostle myself out of this writer's block.

Comments

[slashykink.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness, I hate writer's block! I'm suffering from a dry spell myself.

I personally am a fan of Lovecraftian takes on Sherlock Holmes, or reworking a Lovecraft story to use Holmes, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head for gen fic...

If you can't find a good prompt on the recent sections of the meme, you could go back several months. From reading some of the really old posts (back from the old meme), it seems that the tone and general type of prompts shifts a bit over time.

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

I do need to read some more Lovecraft. Maybe that will kick me into gear. The older sections of the meme are a great idea too! I will definitely try that. Not sure about how it works with posting to an old prompt, but I'm sure the rules are somewhere.

Thank you very much for the help!

[slashykink.livejournal.com]

No problem! And as for old prompts, you can always reprompt it anonymously on the new meme, then fill it when logged in. It's a totally fine thing to do, and has happened before. After all, the goal of the meme is more fic! :)