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Okay, so my life has been more than a little hectic, it has been downright brutal.  I have my virtual office getting organized, so hopefully things will hit back onto an even level and I will be able to get back to my prompts here every day.  I have such wonderful daydreams about actually keeping up with work one of these days, and one of these days I might just surprise myself and have it actually happen.

I have decided that I need to make a few changes here, starting with clearing up a difference in tags vs title for the daily writing prompts.

I realized that I have been archiving them all as “story prompt”, which is what they are, and titling them as “Writing prompt:” - I am going to start changing the way that I am titling the posts, make the title and the tag the same.  I am also going to add a couple of new titles and tags that I had been meaning to for a while now.  The titles / tags that will predominate the daily writing prompt now are:

Story Prompt: a prompt for those who are working on a story.  These are generic prompts that can be slipped into any story as a nudge to give the muses something to work from.

Writing Prompt: a writing prompt is for writers that have no idea what to write about.  This is something that could be used to start an entirely new short story, article or novel.

Writing Tip: tips on writing that are not so much about how to write as about how to write a good story.  These are probably going to be most useful in the editing stages.

Non-fiction Prompt: this is a prompt for writing articles and other non-fiction work.  It might be on an idea for what someone might be writing about, suggestions for types of articles or words of advice from magazine editors and other writers on writing articles and non-fiction.

I guess I have overloaded my brain or something, because as much as I kept thinking, I need to post a daily writing prompt today, I just never seemed to remember to get it done. I have been doing a lot of work on my websites the past few days, and will be getting back to this one to get daily prompts and more posted to it. Apologies to anyone that has been wondering what happened - it is just a simple case of end of winter cabin fever brain fog.

Today’s writing prompt: Overload. Maybe like me your character has a overload on the brain and just keeps forgetting basic little things that they mean to get done. You could have it be an electrical overload instead, or an overload of some other kind.

Today’s writing prompt comes along with a contest. And it is a very very kewl contest if I do say so myself.

A Cowboy’s Wife is having a contest on her food blog! You can win a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer and she’ll ship anywhere so everyone is eligible!

This is a very kewl prize for her first contest, and the blog is one of my favorite food blogs to visit. I’m sharing the contest here to let everyone have a chance to find out about it (contest lasts till the end of January), and because I really want a good chance of winnig the mixer. I need one, mine’s on its last legs.

The Writing Prompt: What’s Cooking

You can either have your character cooking something or trying to learn to cook. Maybe your heroine has plans to make a great dinner for the man she is romancing? I remember years ago my sister (then in her teens) wanted to impress a boy so she made spaghetti, poor girl, first time she ever made it and she refused to let our mom help. It came out of the pot as a spaghetti cake that was sliced at the table. Seems to me it was really good, but oh my, what a unique way to serve spaghetti.

I can just imagine some of the ways this could be used in a Sci-Fi novel, from the hero having his first experience with alien cuisine to his trying to explain a traditional Earth dish to an alien species.

In my own writing you can often tell what I was eating when I was writing, because it is often reflected in the stuff my characters are eating. So, go check out the contest at My Wooden Spoon via one of the links above, then get to typing and see what’s cooking in your story.

The prompt part of this? The Unexpected Letter - I didn’t expect to get this, it was tagged to me at random, so have something random delivered to your lead character then enjoy the fun of this little game. Read on for how to play…

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If you were recently tagged by someone named Sandra (me), here are the rules for the game which I got from Jacob (Thanks Jacob! I needed this blog fodder):

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Share the seven (7) most famous or infamous people you have met. Or go with the original 7 weird things about yourself.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post.
• Include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

You’re a private person, you say? Well, someone switched it up to the seven most famous people you’ve met.

Seven weird things about me? Hmm… I’m sure my friends can come up with that, but not sure I can. As for seven famous people… I didn’t actually meet Robert Redford, but he did sleep on our couch.. don’t think that counts… how about I scramble this up a little more from the normal and, since this is a writing prompts blog, give my seven favorite writing websites? Listed in no particular order:

1) The Black Hole - I found this years ago, great resource telling you what to expect on time for replies from magazines.
2) Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.
3) Project Gutenberg - While not really for writers, this is a great site for anyone looking for the classics to read. I included it because all writers are, by nature, readers.
4) Holly Lisle - I have been a fan of Holly Lisle’s website since it started as Forward Motion back in the late 1990’s. Hers was one of the first actual writer’s websites I found when I decided to start looking for other writers websites online. A must visit site for any writer in my humble opinion.
5) Writer’s Digest Top 101 Best Websites for Writers
6) Stock.xchng - A wonderful community for the sharing of pictures, great resource for those in need of a picture to accompany a story or blog post or for a novel cover or… whatever.
7) yWriter - yWriter is a wonderful writing program made by a writer for writers. It’s free too! Check it out, I think you will love it as much as I do.

I’ve randomly tagged (Okay, not so *random* I used Technorati to look for blogs relating to writing) the following blogs are ones that I found fascinating. My one requirement (other than that they be something my readers might like) was that they all seem to be ones that, on browsing, looked like they might not mind my tagging them. So, enjoy some great new blogs that you might not otherwise have found! I know I might not have found them if Jacob had not tagged me:

1. Mind the gap
2. Write From Karen
3. Writing Aspirations
4. The Unemployed Writer
5. In The Trenches
6. HED’s Writing Mission
7. A Writer’s Journey

As I said, I went through Technorati picking out seven random blogs that are by, or for, writers and looked like they would enjoy being tagged. There is no requirement to participate, this is just for fun and I enjoyed it so much I think I’ll do another random blog spotlight on The Writing Office some time. And, as the fellow that sent me this said - don’t feel bad if I left you out, just take it as an open invitation to join in on this if you feel the need or need the post fodder.