Showerthought: I used a random song lyric as a prompt and got 22 pages of stuff I can't use

Julia Jones · 2026-09-16T22:25:03.542395+00:00

Back in April I pulled a line from a Tom Waits song, "the moon is yellow and the sidewalk is blue," and set a 20 minute timer to just write whatever came out. I ended up with 22 pages of a story about a night janitor in Tacoma, which is fine, except the prompt only gave me a mood and no actual conflict, so every scene just sits there. I learned that a prompt with strong imagery but no tension gives you vibes and nothing to push against. Has anyone found a way to take a mood-only prompt and build real stakes into it, or do you just toss those and start over?

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Showerthought: I used a random song lyric as a prompt and got 22 pages of stuff I can't use | Creative Writing Prompts - SMM Buzz