An interesting email arrived one day recently — a young man from Chicago was hoping I’d take a look at 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More, his new e-book of prompts for writers. Having written many, many prompts myself, I was eager to see what he’d put together, and I liked what I saw — hundreds of prompts to help writers hit the ground running during their writing time. When I asked Bryan if we could do an interview about his project and background for Writing It Real subscribers, he was delighted.

Sheila
After I visited your website, I was impressed not only with your prompts but also with your activity in the arts — film, stage and writing among other activities. What is your training and how do you parcel out your time among the commitments of acting, film producing and writing as well as having the responsibilities of your website and publishing?

 Bryan
I am a 28-year-old writer, actor, producer who lives in Chicago, Illinois. I’ve been writing on and off since middle school, but when I developed a sort of class-clown attitude in high school, my friends suggested I try acting. Once I got to college, I started acting in plays. I changed my major to Dramatic Art and English within a month or two of being in my first play.

Today, I wear a lot of hats from week to week depending on if I’m working on a writing or a theatre project. While most of my days are geared toward freelance writing, I will set aside an hour or two here and there to take on my theatre, producing and publishing projects.

Sheila
Who are you writing for as a freelance writer?

Bryan
First and foremost, I write for myself on my blog Build Creative Writing Ideas. If you slowly but surely build up your own blog and earn some income off of it, it’s always a nice thing to fall back on when other projects are in short supply. I am currently writing for a biological technology and vaccine blog, which is extremely eye opening and interesting. I write a little bit for Demand Studios, though after over 1,000 articles for them in 2009, I’ve stepped that back a bit.

Sheila
Can you tell us a little bit about how you earn money from your blog, how you built it up, and how you decide on assignments from Demand Studios?

Bryan
The major source of income from my blog has been from Google AdSense. I know a lot of people have some issues with the service (and I did for a long time myself) but I feel like when you have a site based on words and stories like mine, AdSense just makes sense. I had to experiment with it at first to optimize it and I’ll have to do it again in the future as time goes on, but it truly is a fantastic source of passive income.

Building up the blog took a lot of work but it became more simple whenever I made it a game for myself. For example, I would try to go for an entire month and write a piece of content every day. Since I’ve put the prompts up, I’ve been fortunate enough to have 60+ people submit their stories based off the prompts to continue to build up additional content. Don’t get me wrong, there were periods of several months at a time during which I wasn’t inspired at all, but luckily those periods haven’t lasted forever J.

Picking Demand Studios articles is a bit of an artform for me. I have written plenty of articles about subjects I don’t know much about at all, but if I write them in the right way, they could be done if I picked clever enough sources. For example, I once wrote an article about doing the moonwalk. By finding the right sources and using the right adjectives in the right places, the article practically wrote itself. And yet, I still can’t do the moonwalk…

Sheila
What are your thoughts on the life of a freelance writer?

Bryan
I feel like the life of the freelancer is very similar to the life of the goal-oriented personal development guy or gal. Both need to be obsessed with goals and motivation and positivity is a major aspect for both. Becoming more focused on what I want in life and in general fighting to be a happier dude have made me a much stronger writer.

Sheila
How do you keep from being overwhelmed while having your hand in so many creative arenas?

Bryan
An improv comedy teacher once told me that when you feel like you have too many things that you can do creatively, pretend that you are too stupid to do more than one thing at the same time. I think it’s a good rule of thumb to go by when you have a ton of ideas and project. Shut your mind off from the other projects that are more or less calling to you and work on one of them at a time. Otherwise, even the most put together individuals can get overwhelmed.

Sheila
Can you describe yourself doing this? Maybe tell us the number of projects you have going on at once and give us a blow by blow for a day or two or three about how you are handling them and doing time management?

Bryan
Let’s see, currently I have a major publishing idea that will allow me to work with over 100 sketch comedians to create some content to sell on Amazon Kindle, along with my freelance work, a fun project I’m considering for my website, and a new writing gig I’m attempting to corral before the end of the year. The publishing idea may be the most lucrative and exciting idea I have, but it will take a lot of time to set up and it will require some startup capital. Even though I keep generating ideas for it, I’m putting it off to the side while I focus on my freelance work and the new writing gig.

I’ll spend about two to four hours a day working on the freelance stuff (starting as early as I can in the day since I work best in the morning) and I will put in at least an hour researching and practicing for the responsibilities of the new gig. The other two projects I am keeping myself in the “idea generation” phase so that I don’t get caught up and stressed out, which would affect my current paid work. Toward the end of December, I will scale back the freelance stuff and allow more time and space for these other two ideas to flourish.

Sheila
Even if you do one thing at a time, I am sure your creative brain allows the various arts projects you are involved in to cross-fertilize. How do you experience this?

Bryan
The art that has most influenced my work is improvisation. I’ve been performing and studying improv comedy for the last nine years or so and it has impacted everything else I’ve ever done. I was already sort of a problem-solving machine in high school, always trying to lend my friends advice or ideas for their stories and problems. Improv training lets you think quicker, generate stronger ideas and it helps you to work better with a team. As a result of my training I started generating ideas at record speed. This led directly into my ability to write 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts. Also, many of the subjects I love like Shakespeare, sports and improv itself found their way into the various sections of the book as well.

Sheila
Please tell us more about this. First, what is the training in improv that allows the mind to generate ideas at record speed? Could you include the name of a book or website that could help us understand this aspect of improv, which must be central to the art.

Bryan
While there are some books helpful with improv, it is probably most helpful to find a class taught in your area. There are major centers for this in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and North Carolina, though I’m sure more exist in almost every large city in the United States. If you are forced to do it in the courtesy of your own home, get Improvise by Mick Napier, which has some fantastic solo exercises. Also Truth in Comedy, co-written by a friend of mine, Kim “Howard” Johnson is a fantastic quick read on the subject.

The real crux of this training for me has been training my mind to act quickly, whether it be through words or movements without thinking. Performing this task over and over again in thousands of scenes has made me quick as a whip in both my daily conversations and my writing.

Sheila
In addition to helping you generate so many writing prompts so quickly, are there other ways that your improv training informs your writing?

Bryan
One of the tenets of improv I learned early on was the phrase, “If that’s true, what else is true?” Taught to me by my first improv instructor, Ross White, this helped me to flesh out scenes based on the tiny bit of information you and a scene partner have shared in just a few short lines. I have also used this phrase to flesh out my articles and written scenes by figuring out what logically follows from what I’ve already written. This can be used to develop characters and to take a plot in directions you never even dreamed of.

Sheila
What would you suggest to those who might want to gain “brain flexibility” and learn to generate original ideas?

Bryan
The training is key, whether it be from one of those books I mentioned or from a local class.

The other important aspect is to take in as much information as possible. Read whatever you can, even about subjects you don’t particularly care for. Listen to audio programs and podcasts. If you learn more things about the world, it will prepare you for times that you are feeling “brain stuck.” The more colors you can paint with, the more you can put into your painting.

Sheila
Tell us about the history of your prompt book project: what inspired you and how you assembled the book. How do you know the prompts work?

Bryan
As I’m sure you know, blogging is a lot of work. Sometimes you just want to phone it in and write something short and sweet, but at the same time you want to create something of value. I started creating lists of writing prompts that were short in length but gave a great deal of mileage for readers. They ended up becoming my most popular pages. I decided that for my first book project I would combine all of them and place them in one location for easy searching. I have gotten some awesome feedback about the prompts and the book and I’ve had friends and strangers alike tell me how the prompts have helped them as writers. I have even used the prompts myself from time to time. You know that a book is helpful when it can even help its own writer out :).

Sheila
It’s amazing how many books have started as blogging entries. It proves the adage that a writer is someone who writes. Write and things will fall together.

In your book, what is your favorite prompt? Why?

Bryan
I don’t know if I have a favorite prompts but I really like #12. “Write a scene or a story with the characters of your heart, your brain and your soul” It was one of the first prompts that I ever received fan mail about, so first of all it holds a special place in my heart. Secondly, it’s kind of the eternal conflict for the artist. You want to follow your heart in all your work but the brain must have its say in practicality. It all gets kind of tied together by the work your doing and if you’re living up to some higher purpose (the soul). I think that almost anybody who writes from this prompt can create something a little bit different despite it being one of my shorter prompts.

Sheila
Do you happen to have an outcome for that prompt that we could include here? I’d love to see what you or another wrote in doing this exercise.

Bryan
Alright, here goes my take on the “Write a scene or a story with the characters of your heart, your brain and your soul” prompt. I’m going to do this one just for you Sheila J. I am imagining that this conversation could have taken place between these three gentleman at any point during my young adult life.
(Lights up on Heart, Brain and Soul.)

Heart: Guys, I think I’m in love.

(Brain and Soul groan.)

Brain: Heart, you say that every five seconds and you have your entire life.

Heart: But –

Soul: Look dude, I’m as deep as they come, but even I know that you have to reign it in every so often.

Brain: Statistically, if you continue to fall in love as often as you do, there is a large potential for, excuse the pun, heartbreak.

Heart: What should I do then?

Soul: Mind if I take this one…mind?

Brain: Oh, you think you’re so funny. Sure.

Soul: Love is a little bit of feeling but a lot about focus. If you truly love someone or something, you need to put some time and effort into it. People wonder why love doesn’t work out for them, but it tends to come from not putting in the grunt work necessary to make it stick.

Heart: Wow, soul. That was kind of beautiful. I think I’m in l-

Soul: Shut up.
Sheila
I can see the improv at work here — not only in the conversation among the three characters, Heart, Brain and Soul but in the line, “Mind if I take this one…mind?” I’m a little sad that Soul says, “Shut up.” It doesn’t sound very soulful, but I realize the annoyance with Heart for falling so quickly again.

I bet you’d have some advice to us about using prompts based on your improv training.

Bryan
Sure thing. With this prompt in particular I just assumed a basic trait for each character. Brain is a bit pompous, Soul is a cool guy and Heart is a sap. From there I just wrote the first thing that came to mind. I didn’t pause, I didn’t deliberate, I just wrote. Whenever you find yourself at a roadblock while using a prompt or otherwise, it never hurts to just use your pencil to blurt out whatever is bouncing around in that head of yours.

Sheila
What do you say to people who scuff at using prompts, people who think they can only be original if they start from something that occurs to them without the aid of a prompt?

Bryan
I feel like people who would look down on prompts aren’t having any problems writing. Someone who is naturally strong at tests might be prone to making fun of someone who needs a tutor. A naturally skinny person walking by a gym might chuckle at heavy-set people on treadmills. Often people who turn their noses up at something just don’t understand how important having a little help now and then can be. Getting help can often be a sign of strength and I commend those like myself who don’t value themselves as perfect individuals and need occasional aids to get through their projects :).

Sheila
I’m with you! And something wonderful is that usually responses to a particular prompt are as varied as snowflakes. How one person’s brain associates and combines life experiences with a particular prompt is going to be different than everyone else’s response to the prompt. And my favorite response when someone uses is a prompt is when they say, “I think I did it wrong.” Whatever the prompt made them think created writing. They couldn’t have done it wrong.

Bryan
I’m thinking that if you multiply that snowflake by 1,000 snowflakes, ideally you end up with over a million different reactions to the prompts in the book. I really hope that people pick up this book and give at least one of the prompts a shot.

Sheila
Thank you for making me aware of your work and website. And thank you for putting together a book of prompts that can help people keep on going. Knowing that you can dip into a huge number of ways to begin writing something takes the “what will I write about” question away. No stalling. You just read the prompt and go. Then you can assess what you have on your hands and what it should become.

I also like the idea as an author of letting characters in a memoir or novel “write” from a prompt so I can learn more about them. Any experience doing this? What do you think of the idea?

Bryan
I have done this a lot with improv in order to flesh out characters for writing. Take a character that you have created and have a few friends do a comedic scene putting that character in different circumstances (or you could just write this if you don’t have anybody available). This will help you to realize aspects of the character that may have been sitting right in front of you. All in all, you can make a more fully three-dimensional character by giving the character room to breath in additional scenes that you don’t even plan to use.

Sheila
Good luck to you, Bryan, in all of your endeavors and thank you for being the kind of writer interested in helping others through your blog, e-book, and the other resources on your website.

Bryan
Thanks, and same to you!