Any short story writers out there?

I am a member of a writers' group in my town. We meet every two weeks. Each meeting usually has a different theme. We are given a set of prompts to work from. I have actually written a whole novel using writing prompts. Of course I had to fill in some gaps and such but a lot of writing prompts helped me come up with scenes. A good book of writing prompts is Judy Reeves' "A Writer's Book of Days". There are also several websites with prompts. If you just do a search on creative writing prompts you will come up with many. Personally, I use my own experiences and fears to write my stories. The best writing is writing what you know. I am currently reading Jodi Picoult's "Plain Truth" which takes place in the Amish community in Pennsylvania. She had to do some heavy research in order to be able to write accurately about it. And she did a great job. I didn't think I would ever write short stories because as a storyteller I tell long stories. LOl! But we had a woman come to our writing group and give us a short story writing workshop over a four week period. That was very beneficial. Ideas are all around you in the people you see, the conversations you hear, news stories, tv shows, songs... You just have to keep your ears and eyes open. Good luck!

*raises hand* I write short stories every chance I can get. I get inspiration from everyday life, for the most part. I use Seventh Sanctum to get ideas too: http://www.seventhsanctum.com Plus I get lots of inspiration from chatting with other writers on online forums. My personal fave is NaNoWriMo: http://www.nanowrimo.org The best book I can recommend for finding writing prompts and story sparks is: The Writers Book of Matches: 1001 Prompts to Ignite Your Fiction bythe staff of fresh boiled peanuts This book is just amazing. It just you a starter sentance and you creat a story based on that sentance. My personal fave, and the reason I bought this book, is this one: "A woman wakes up to find herself horribly disfigured after splurging on an expensive face cream that promosed amazing results." You can find this book at most bookstores or at Amazon.com. Here's an article I wrote about how I get rid of writer's block: http://www.squidoo.com/Kill-a-Character I hope this helps you out

I enjoy writing shorts. Lately, that's all I've been able to write, it seems. I like to choose some items that are totally unrelated and work them into a story. It's fun to try to tie items together and really gets you to thinking about some great ideas. There are numerous sites for writing prompts. A good writing prompts site is here: http://www.creativewritingprompts.com

Before Iw rite I usually already know what I am going to write about. Not word for word of course but I already have a rough idea what will happen to my story and I already know who the characters will be. Just like you there are times I could barely string two words together and other times I write until my hands hurt. When I couldn't think of anything I just stop and do something else. By the time Im done with that I usually manage to get my thoughts organized enough for me to continue writing.

I am a writer and most of my writing is in column form now. However, I have written many short stories and had them published which is such a rush. I really rarely ever get writer's block. I do when I HAVE to have a column in and I just don't feel like writing but but not when it comes to creatively writing. I love it. I could write 24 hours a day and probably have a time or two. When I sit there and feel like nothing is coming to me, I always fall back on my old way of writing and that is shorts that loosely resemble things that happen in my own life. Once I start, then they take on lives of their own. I have had those writing spurts where I just can't stop and have written until my hands were about to fall off and my head was pounding but it was good stuff. I would read it back and honestly not even remember writing some it. *I* wanted to know what was going to happen next. lol. I don't write according to any guideline or any outline. I sit down and go. I have no idea where the story is going. It often takes me where I never expected to go. I think it is an amazing experience. Keep writing!

It is the same with me. Some times I write non-stop but some times it is difficult to even start. I have written numerous short stories in English, Urdu and Pashto languages and I write often on every day life issues. I get inspiration from what I see around me. Do you work? Write on behaivour of your co-workers and what happen there. Do you travel? Write about new things and people you see.