Greetings and salutations. It is I, Greyson.

Life is pretty crazy. My disability appeal was denied a few days ago. My lawyer’s office says the next step will be to file an appeal in front of an Administrative Judge. So that’s the bad news. However, the good news is that A) this is supposedly the expected process, and B) while the first two steps took thirty-one months, I should have a court date by June. Maybe this stretched-out nightmare is nearing its end. Of course, plans need to be made on the possibility that the final answer is no. But we aren’t thinking about that right now.

Our thoughts at the moment are on writing prompts. I’ve enjoyed these to some extent on social media. They tend to be fun, give me an excuse to post more often, and give me a chance to talk about my books. I’ve tended to pick a WIP that is what I tend to have, well, in progress that month, and talk about what I have written, what I have planned to write, and just generally give the few friends I have following me a taste of how and what I write.

Then February happened.

Clevenger is the plotter. He’s the one that walks in knowing the dialogue, goals, plot, and tone of a scene before he starts fleshing it out in his WIP. I’m the crazy pantser. I have a vague idea of the plot, a few tentpoles in the middle, and an idea of the ending. Primarily I am filling out the primary points of the Seven Act Structure, and building the scenes around those. The problem is, that leaves me doing things like starting a Dark Fantasy Romance with ideas like, “A, B, and C happen, then in act three they fall in love. From there, E, F, and G happen. I walk into the writing expecting me to just stumble upon what it actually looks like when they fall in love.

This month’s prompt schedule, being February and Valentine’s Day, all themed around romance in the WIP. So many of the prompts forced me to dig deep into Cristobal’s mindset, asking questions I had not even thought of. Things like, before finding Aerulen, what does Cristobal think about love and romance? What would a date with him look like? What kind of sweet moments am I looking to work toward? What kind of flirty moments, or terms of endearment can I work into the story?

I knew these were things that would be needed… eventually. But this prompt really helped me out by putting it there, in front of my face, at the time I needed it. So I really wanted to give a shout-out to @ChesneyInfalt for your excellent #FantasyIndiesFebruary writing prompt. You did me a great service this month. I also want to put in a good word for @CJAralore for their #QueerPrompts as well, for their wonderful monthly prompts. I encourage you to check out both, and think about how these types of Social Media prompts might be able to benefit your writing, as well.

Don’t forget to love one another.

Greyson Black