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I finally stopped hoarding 40 half finished prompt ideas in my notes app
For about 6 months I kept a Google Doc called "ideas" that grew to 43 pages and I never finished a single story from it. Then my writing group in Portland read one of my starts out loud and the silence after was brutal. Now I take one prompt, write 500 words, and delete it the same night whether it is good or bad. Turns out finishing junk teaches me more than collecting perfect setups. Does anyone else trash their prompts on purpose, or do you keep them in a folder somewhere?
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smith.lee6d ago
Reading your post made me want to push back on one thing, because the 43 page doc is not the problem by itself. Keeping a pile of starts is fine if you go back and pick one, the trap is treating the doc like a to do list you never touch. I've got a notes file too and the stuff in it sat there for a year until I made a rule that I can't add a new idea unless I kill an old one first. What actually changed for you was the feedback from your group, not the deleting, because hearing your start read out loud and getting that silence is what told you the setups were not working. My guess is the 500 words plus the trash can just forced you to face that faster. So yeah, clear out the dead ones if they bug you, but save a couple, some starts just need a year to grow into something.
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