Summertime is not a season of joy for those of us in the sunny Sonoran desert – where I reside. No, it’s a brutal hellhole of pain and misery where every day beats you down just a little more than the one before it. Don’t get me wrong, I love my weird desert state, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to die every-single-August.

Unlike our cold-weather-counterparts, we retreat indoors for the sunshine season and hide away in darkened rooms with the A/C cranked as low as we can go (or afford to go). That does provide some of us writerly folk with the perfect excuse to stay indoors and put pen to page. I’ve been enmeshed in the editing process with my publisher for my first novel so I haven’t had much time to work on new stories. And writing new stories is the only thing that brings me joy so my seasonal depression is super charged this year.

Now that I have my manuscript over to the layout team, I can maybe relax a little and maybe scribble away at some new ideas. I’ll often start stories or outline tales that I don’t flesh out fully. I have boxes of notebooks full of them, actually. I don’t feel like they’re missed opportunities, but moments spent cutting my teeth, panning for gold, testing the water…. please apply your applicable own cliche.

The point is, these hours spent scribbling on stories that go nowhere are hours well spent.  They helped shape my process, my voice, and my practice. And, every now and again, they took hold and grew into something far more than a one-night-stand story. As we’re charging our way through the furnace, I thought this would be a good time to share some writing prompts for other people who might be sharing extra indoor time.

Original image by Simon Berger [IG]

Original image by Julie Aargaard [IG]

Original image by Ithalu Dominguez [IG]