TIL that writing prompts work better when I do them out loud first

I used to just stare at a blank page until something clicked, but last month I tried talking through a prompt into my phone while walking my dog in Riverside Park. The weird thing is, the messy spoken version had way more story ideas than anything I typed cold, so now I ramble for five minutes before opening my laptop. Has anyone else tried speaking their ideas before writing, or is that just my weird brain?

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angelamurphy15d ago

Oh man, this is such a good trick! I started doing something similar when I got stuck on a scene, but I never thought to do it before I even opened up the doc. So here's my question: do you edit that ramble at all, or do you literally just type it out word for word and let the mess become the first draft? Because I feel like half my problem is I try to clean things up too early, and that kills the weird ideas before they can grow.