Life is surprising. I have been teaching workshops on using writing prompts for two years now and before that they were a regular feature on my author blog. After a fair amount of research and racking my brain I had come up with twenty-six writing prompts that were different enough from each other to deserve their own set of comments. 
          Then last week, I started researching a workshop for read-on prompts and ran across several more. My list has been expanded to thirty-eight. I imagine there are more out the waiting for me to discover them, but for now these will have to suffice.


PROMPT TWENTY-EIGHT - MEMORIES

           Using this prompt should result in creating stories that are more emotionally driven since they will be based on the author’s life experiences. Allow words to flow from your subconscious to the page, making a list of any nouns that are generated this way. Then let your mind free-associate those with mental pictures out of your past. These become the foundation for your stories.
           For instance:
 
Airplane – climbing a plane monument in a park and nearly falling off.
Truck – my family taking a vacation in my dad’s beat up Chevy.
Lumber – working with an accident prone laborer twice my age.
           
 
Slow Moe – Randy started his construction career as a laborer under the tutelage of Joe “Moe” Morrison. Moe suffered injury after injury, remaining a laborer even after Randy started his own construction company and hired him. Then Randy suffers a debilitating work injury and Moe offers to help Randy at home until he recovers. In the wake of their strengthening friendship, Randy discovers that Moe’s mishaps weren’t funny or amusing at all.
   

                  PROMPT TWENTY-SEVEN – IF YOU BUILD IT
 
            This is similar to the Titles prompt in which you look at the names of books, movies, and songs to inspire you in creating an original story. The difference is that with this prompt you are creating the title yourself rather than looking at what’s already out there.
            During the process of naming some of your earlier works you may have developed a list of titles that sounded great, but didn’t fit the story as well as you would have liked. This is a perfect time to trot those out and put them to use. Or maybe a great title for a story popped into your head while you were driving to work. Now you just need a story to go with it.
            If inspiration hasn’t dropped the name of a story into your lap then you will have to work a bit to build one. Modify a quote, an old saying, or a verse from the Bible to make it sound snappy. Make a list of random words from the dictionary and move them around until they form some sort of cohesive line that grabs your attention. Take the first line of your favorite novel and turn it into a title.
 
            The pitch for this exercise is based on a title that came to me several years ago and, for whatever reason, caught my attention--The Price of Souls. 
 
The Price of Souls – Lona dreamed of becoming the first woman President of the United States. Then she grew up. Life in the fast lane seemed more realistic and entertaining than childhood fantasies. One party too much and Lona stands in front of the Creator. She is charged with correcting the mistakes of her life—a task that may take generations to undo the series of ill events which resulted from her actions.