Welcome! This book of writing prompts is for all my ‘tribe’ of fellow romance writers, no matter what sub-genre or heat level you represent. I’d love to spend the year with you as you create some great stories. You might be thinking ‘well who the hell is this woman, and why has she done this?’ Okay, here’s the deal. Back in 2016 I crossed paths with a fellow suspense and thriller author, we became wonderful friends and for sure she’s a girlfriend for life. Her name is Didi Oviatt, you may know her. Anyway, we went on to start a very simple blogging challenge together where we created short stories of about 2,000-3,000 words each week. One of us would write one half, and the other would finish it. No discussion, planning or anything. The best bit is we used writing prompts voted on by our blog followers and readers. At the time of writing this four years later, we’re seventeen stories and two novels deep! We have published them and are currently working on book three. I have also used writing prompts to interact with my followers, readers and fans via my own author site since day one. I love writing prompts, so for me, writing prompts have really helped with creativity, productivity and most importantly building a readership. If it can work for me, friend it can work for you. If you’re still curious, my bio is below.

I was born in 1983 I’m from London in the UK. I’m a mother to a beautiful little boy, and a proud award-winning author. While this book was on pre-sale on Amazon, this book hit the number one spot on Amazon’s romance writer’s reference new release list, so I guess I’m also a best-selling author now too, LOL. I  started my  journey as a traditionally published author and later dived into self-publishing also. As a reader, I love romance, historical fiction, crime fiction, African-American, suspense and thrillers books. As a writer, I enjoy creating steamy stories with a diverse and multi-cultural line up within the romance, romantic suspense and general thriller and crime genres. When I’m not reading or writing my other passions include practising my French, fashion, drawing, make-up artistry, spending time at my sewing machine dressmaking, watching make –up and beauty tutorials on YouTube, letter writing and being a mum.

How Best to Use this Writing Reference Book and Prompts

Firstly, why even use writing prompts? Well, if my introduction has not pushed you in the right direction to understand the benefits, here’s the real deal. We all get stuck! No matter how good of a writer we are, how creative, or even how motivated, some days the words or characters just run dry as hell. I’ve been there. So, to keep it real, the purpose of this book is to help you avoid the dry spells as much as possible and keep you fresh!

The best way to use this writing reference is to keep in mind these five small things.

1.     Make every prompt your own—you will find situations or people within each prompt. Nothing is set in stone, each prompt is just an idea or even outline or direction, if you like, for where you could head. I don’t really recommend (unless you really feel drawn to my prompt) that you stick to it and not put your own spin on it somehow. Take a prompt and add, or subtract, what you feel suits your style, storytelling, experience or even desire. Basically, don’t feel stuck with what you have; it’s just an idea to get your juices flowing.

2.     No matter your genre, steal it and use it! So, as you know by now, in the romance genre I’m a romantic suspense writer in principle. Yes, I have written other stuff and yes, I can write other stuff. But, I always default here because I love to read and write romantic suspense. So, with these prompts, I have kept them as generic as possible. This means if you like an idea, and wish to make it a paranormal, urban or fantasy romance, go for it! Like I said, don’t feel stuck. Take the general idea and flip it to your own script.

3.     Heat and steam levels are completely free for all! I like my romance steamy, maybe you’re a sweet and clean writer, that’s cool. Do what you wish in terms of heat levels, if you want to ramp up a prompt and make it high in heat…please do, I’d love to read it too!

4.     Dip in and out of each month, week, etc. as you see fit, too. You can go through January-December or mix it up.

5.     The last three months of the year, all the prompts are personal blogging prompts and I recommend that if you have not already, you really start to develop an author site or use your current one and do some personal blogging. (More on that later.) Again, you don’t need to wait until October to start, start today!