As a new writer… no, let me rephrase that; as someone who has recently discovered a passion for writing, I find it much easier to write if I have a topic to write about. A great tool that is employed in my creative writing class, and apparently widely used within the writing world, is the writing prompt. During our weekly class, our teacher / leader / tribal chief will give us a topic and then allow us to write on that topic for 5 minutes or so. It is simply amazing the stories the human mind can concoct and put on paper within 5 minutes.

If you have read my bio on the home page of this website, you will know that I have 3 books planned over the next 3 years. My first one is at the editor, a short children’s picture book that I hope to be in distribution before this year’s Christmas season. My second book, hopefully to be published next year, is fully developed (in my head) with copious amounts of notes already entered into my favorite desktop word processing program. The third book, a novel, is to be released before the end of 2018, a lofty goal by anyone’s measure. What puts that goal in the realms high above lofty is that, so far, not only do I not have a plot for this book, I have yet to define my style as a writer.

To help me define my style of writing I figured the best way would be to write. Whatever I happen to write about will help me better understand where I want to take my writing. The more I write I’m sure I will find topics and genres that I enjoy more than others. How to explore different topics and genres? My friends have volunteered to help me out with a little experiment that I’m calling “Let me write for you”. I asked my Facebook page followers to give me a line from their favorite song. I will take that line and work it into a story. It may be the first line of the story, it may be the last, or it may fall somewhere in between, but rest assured it will show up in the story. To increase the challenge on my part, I have promised 7 stories over the next 7 days using the first 7 lines given to me by my friends. My challenge will start tomorrow and run for 7 consecutive days. I will categorize each story as “Song Prompt”. Here are my 7 lines:

Make me a witness, take me out, out of darkness out of doubt.

 Put me in, coach, I’m ready to play.

 I’m the happy elf and I just might stop on by, I’m Santa’s spy!

 We keep this love in a photograph. We keep these memories for ourselves.

 I paid for the shoes that just walked out on me.

 Stars are shining on the water here tonight, it’s good for the soul when there’s not a Soul in sight.

 Let me photograph you in this light in case it is the last time that we might be exactly like we were

Some of these songs I know, some I don’t. The story line seems obvious on most but I will attempt to weave a tale most unexpected for each. Wish me well.