What Do You Do For Writing Practice?

[Eloquence 2,076]

Pretty self explanatory from the title: when you want to work on your writing skills, what do you do? Do you focus all of your energy on stories? Do you use writing prompts? Do you journal? What's your "writing routine", so to speak?

 

I know that for me, the hardest thing about writing is usually just deciding what to write and sticking with an idea, and often that can hinder the amount of practice I get at it, so I'm curious about what others do in order to maintain and improve their skill.

[reader8363 1,281]

@@Eloquence,

For me, I write down my before starting, then after let my imagination run free, but put what I written down, into the story

[The Crystal Maiden 221]

If I'm feeling a lack of inspiration or I don't feel confident with my style, I will often write a simple short story to get the juices flowing again and then go back to the main story I was working on before. Writing prompts are great to give you a kick-start and help you come up with something interesting. e.g. pictures, quotes, an opening sentence. My inner fiction geek squeals at the thought. XD

 

My problem is that I work on too many stories at once and I lose my mojo for one or more of them. So I tend to focus my attention on one and wait for inspiration to come back for the others once I'm satisfied with something else. If that makes sense. XD

[1Bit 1,531]

Writing prompts and flash fiction are excellent for me

 

Not only gives you quick ideas for a story, but also a 300-word limit is a little challenging so tests your skills

[Celestial Sloth 369]

Drugs Coming up with absolutely any image/setting/line and then seeing what it can become.

 

And if it doesn't go anywhere, I can just add some line breaks and call it 'poetry' and my tutors can't say anything about it. 

Edited January 9, 2016 by Celestial Sloth

[95% Chance 78]

Honestly, roleplay with others has helped me immensely with writing. It's like writing a story that you don't know the outcome of, so it forces you to adapt on the fly. When I have a really ambitious or large writing project that I work on, I tend to outline specific plot points beforehand so I don't lose the goal of the story at large.

 

Granted, everything in between the plot points is made up on the fly, but I digress. It's really just writing something every day.