Twenty Inventive New Year’s Writing Prompts

I am a professional author, full of interesting ideas and ready to help other writers create amazing stories.

Here are twenty inventive New Year’s Writing Prompts to start your writing year off right.

1.       A professor has a dream about no one coming to her class on the first day of the semester

2.       A mom realizes that her kids don’t go back to school until February

3.       A grumpy neighbor gets mad that Christmas lights are still on

4.       A gym owner hands out cookies and gets punched in the face

5.       The lights go out on New Year’s Eve and don’t come back on in the morning

6.       A candle store goes out of business because every single Christmas gift gets returned

7.       A woman’s New Year’s Resolution is to leave her husband

8.      Fireworks go off on New Year’s Eve but then a city realizes it was a bomb

9.     The ball drops in Times Square, breaks open and ______ flies out

10.   Everyone is forced to relive the last year over again

11.   A child’s New Year’s Resolution is to get their parents to divorce

12.   A January calendar is printed with the wrong date

13.   Travelers use the wrong dated calendar to book airline tickets that are one day off

14.   A woman decides to leave her Christmas lights up all year round

15.   A granddaughter starts to declutter her grandmother’s house and finds a shocking amount of____

16.   A boy gets a new pair of sneakers and discovers they allow him to_______

17.   A grocery store gives away a chance to win a free car with every pound of kale sold.

18.   A blizzard shuts down a mountain highway, and two strangers find the same cabin

19.   There is a national emergency signal sent at 12:01 am that says _____

20.   There is a magical calendar and whatever you write on it comes true

If any of these writing prompts tickle your fancy, you might love one of my books! You can check them out points up up there! And if you write a bestseller based on one of my prompts, please acknowledge me in the back.

To help other authors come up with great ideas, pin one of these photos to Pinterest!

A Story About Pie

Let’s talk about pie.

Yes, pie.

The dessert, not the mathematical number.

I have a friend, A, who is a phenomenal pastry chef.  I have been able to sample her creations on numerous occasions, but I have never pressed my advantage. Our children were in the same class in first or second grade and that was the first time I heard about A’s cream puffs.

You see, it was A’s child’s birthday and instead of bringing in store-bought cupcakes for the class, A brought (per her child’s request), homemade cream puffs.

My child informed me that they were delicious and could she also have homemade cream puffs brought to school for her birthday?

My child asked me for cream puffs for years. The memory of those delicious cream puffs haunted my poor, underprivileged child saddled with a useless mom who was not even going to attempt homemade cream puffs.

Yet. I became friends with A anyway, even though she showed me up in the cream puff department. And the tartlette department. And the macaron department.

She is a trained and accomplished pastry chef, after all. I accept that I cannot compete in these arenas.

But like I said, I’ve never asked for special favors or samples. I would never presume. Baking is hard work and can be expensive and I respect that this is her job.

Then one day last week, A posted a photo of a new recipe she was developing.

It was a completely new type of pie.

A described it in loving, intricate detail, using elevated vocabulary that only true foodies would appreciate.  Panna cotta. Sweet milk. Chocolate ball.

Okay, even I understood that last one.

I get a text soon after from A: Do you want to try this new pie?  

Um, yes.

I dropped by A’s house and she had a miniature sized  pie waiting for me. It was perfect. Perfect shape, perfect dollop of whipped cream on the top, sprinkled with just the right amount of chocolate garnish. Not a crumb out of place. Not a scorch mark or over-brown spot to be seen.

“I’m trying it out,” A said. “I want to know what you think.”

“It looks perfect,” I said.

“Eh,” she said.

EH?

And right then, I saw it.  The tangle of emotions that a creative person gets when they’re trying something new. The excitement, the uncertainty, the passion, the perfectionism.

To me, that miniature pie was perfection. If I had made up the recipe – from scratch, mind you – then created eight sample-sized pies that all looked like they could go straight into a Parisian patisserie’s display case, you would not be hearing “eh” from me.

I would be jumping on top of couches and demanding an excessive amount of praise for creating something amazing from nothing.

For A? It was simply the first draft of a new pie.

Which is something I recognize. My first drafts… well, yes, they’re amazing. But I know they can get better.

I told her then – she was inspiring to me. (And I’m telling her now.)

The fact that she has a new idea – and then uses her skills and talents – to create something that people will gobble down (with pleasure) in five minutes?

It makes my heart ache a little. Humans want to create things. We want to bring smiles to faces. We want to impact days, if not lives.

Whether it’s pies or hand-knitted sweaters from artisanal-dyed yarn or bold paintings or fun stories about falling in love and solving mysteries, so many of us want to share little expressions of ourselves with others. We want them warm, fed, smiling, inspired.

If you’re a creative person, thank you. You make the world a better place.

You know what else makes the world a different place?

A new pie, every month.

That’s right. My friend A has a pie of the month club.   Which is where this story goes to a whole new level.

While I was appreciating A’s new, never been created before pie recipe, and seeing the connection between her culinary creativity and my literary efforts, I remembered the Pie of the Month Club.

“Why don’t I do that?” I asked myself.

I really hate when I do that.

But I have spent the last seven months having lots of deep thoughts about life, work and creating. (#pandemic) I’ve asked myself a lot of uncomfortable questions.

If A can create pastry recipes from scratch EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH…

Could I do the same?

No, not pies, obviously. We’ve established that’s not my oeuvre.

Stories.

Could I put myself out there and go a little crazy? Try new things? Update old things? Write boldly, write unapologetically, write whatever it was I wanted to read that day? Add the fiction equivalent of cardamom when people expect cinnamon?

I think I want to try.

Maybe?

When you start writing commercially, you start to let other people’s opinions get inside your head. And it’s time for me to knock some of that out.

There’s a song that I’ve been loving lately that sort of sums this all up – my words and A’s baking.

If it ain't familiar, it's 'cause you ain't had it yet
Even if you don't like it, I bet you won't forget
There's always one or two pushing on the envelope
So I'ma raise a glass to you if you're one of those

- Maren Morris

So. Who’s in for Story of the Month club?

If you’re interested in following along with this new development, make sure you’re signed up for my newsletter. I haven’t thought through all the details yet but whatever they end up being, the Inner Circle will definitely be the first ones to know!

Why You Need to Quit Nanowrimo

Why You Need to Quit Nanowrimo

 (Look at me with the clickbait title!)

Okay, I don’t mean YOU need to quit Nanowrimo.

I mean, you, over there. Yeah. You need to quit.

You who have tried everything and don’t understand why writing a whole book in a month isn’t working for you when OBVIOUSLY it works for kajillions of other people in November every damn year.

[Side note: Nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month and also an organization that promotes this event. Nanowrimo encourages participants to write 50,000 words during November.]

For myself, I have “won” Nanowrimo (it’s called winning when you complete 50,000 words in one month.) That was the year that I graciously accepted all the prizes (yes, there are prizes), one of which was a nice discount on Scrivener , the writing software that I still use for all my first drafts to this day.

I’ve also attempted Nanowrimo and “lost.” (They don’t call it losing, but it’s the opposite of winning so…)  But of course I’ve never considered it a loss. ANY words on the page are great. Any stab at a book means, well, that the book is closer to… dying? (What kind of metaphor is ‘taking a stab at,’ anyway?)

I’ve also encouraged and recommended Nanowrimo to almost anyone who has come to me, seriously, and said they want to write a book. (If I haven’t recommended it to you, it’s because I didn’t take you seriously, Mr. Dude at the Sports Bar who had a Great Idea for a KGB Spy Book but like, Harry Potter Style That Will Be Bigger Than 50 Shades of Gray.)

Why do I recommend Nanowrimo to new / aspiring authors? Because you don’t know if you can write a book until you actually try to write a book. It’s as simple as that. Writing books is a lot more than having ideas and picturing them in your head. Writing a book entails WRITING FIFTY to ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND WORDS (approximately) in a (mostly) legible way and making sure it tells a complete story.  That’s… a lot. I’m not going to make it sound like it’s not.

So, you know, if you’re reading this and have always wanted to write, go sign up at Nanowrimo.org and see what they have to offer.

But you said I had to quit Nanowrimo, Lindsay.

I did.

Because I think you should try. And then quit if it’s not working for you.

Why? I hear you saying, “I want to be a writer. I have this amazing idea for a Harry Potter style KGB spy novel that I must gift to the world as my legacy!”

Awesome. The world needs that book, ASAP. (The more times I type this, I might steal this idea, honestly.)

But Nanowrimo doesn’t work for everyone. It’s worked for me, and then it hasn’t. And look, I have five books published with traditional publishers and two self-published books. I have a great agent and a very popular podcast and fans around the world.

And I still know that I’m not going to be able to write fifty thousand words this month.

How do I know that? How do I know that this fantastic program that’s helped so many aspiring writers is most definitely not going to help me this month?

Well, here’s the second piece of advice I started giving new writers about eighteen months ago.

…There’s a class you need to take.

It’s called Write Better Faster. The instructor is Becca Syme.

And she’s helped me sooooo much. I wish I’d taken this class when I was just starting off. Through her insights and the application of a variety of personality/ strength/ self-knowledge instruments, you’ll start figuring out whether something like Nanowrimo will work for you.

Plotting, pantsing, worksheets, writing alone, writing in groups, sprints, critique groups, accountability, deadlines, BICHOK, “treating writing like a job,” “getting in the flow…”  You hear about all these things when you start dipping your toes into the writing community and at first, most of us are tempted to TRY EVERYTHING. And then we’re frustrated when we’re struggling to complete a novel and the people we started off with have self-published a ten-book high fantasy series.

Becca’s classes (and I’ve taken three of them and been coached by her) have helped me learn my strengths, my personality and the type of environments I work best in. All of these lead to greater productivity and greater, well, wellness, truth be told. 

I don’t stress out as much as I used to when the words don’t “flow.” I don’t feel the need to jump on every bandwagon, sign up for every writing course, buy every “how to do novels” book. I know what works for me, and if I don’t, I have the tools to figure it out.

Nanowrimo probably worked for me that first time because I’m a highly competitive person, because I had a small, tightknit group of people who were doing it with me, because I had a steady, predictable schedule at the time and because I’d thoroughly thought out my story ahead of time. 

Nanowrimo hasn’t worked for me since because I either jump in without a fully intellected story (that’s a word in Becca-land) or because it hasn’t been necessary for my publishing strategy. (I know now that my strategic strengths are very strong – and I should always listen to them).

But that’s me. And what I (now) know about myself. ^^^ All those reasons may not apply to you.

So yes, by all means, try Nanowrimo. PLEASE. Again, you never know until you try. Keep sludging through, keep at it!! It’s a thrill to win!

Or… sign up for Becca’s Write Better Faster course. And save yourself some essential pain if Nano seems… harder than it should be? There’s probably a new class starting soon (PERFECT for those I’m going to write a book resolutions.)

She also has a new course called Live Better Faster for those who want to know themselves better to succeed at other life/ career endeavors, not necessarily writing.  

And if you end up taking Write Better Faster, I can’t wait to see you in the Facebook groups or hit me up on social media and let me know ALL the THINGS that you’ve learned and what you’ve learned to Quit.

More Nano/ writing advice:

Alexis Anne’s Five Tips for Writing Nanowrimo

First Draught Writing Podcast

Women With Books Podcast: Chapter 4 with Alexis Daria

Becca’s books if you want to learn more about her philosophy (Yes, I stole her clickbait convention.)

Dear Writer, You Need to Quit
Dear Writer, Are You in Burnout?
Dear Writer, You’re Doing it Wrong

And you can listen/ watch Becca on her Youtube Podcast, The Quit Cast

Some links on this page may be affiliate links, which means I could receive a few coins for posting them. As always, thank you for your support and encouragement!

Modern Royal Family Scandals

How I’m Inspired by Modern Royal Family Scandals

 My next book – The Royal Bodyguard – is the second book featuring the Royal House of Laurent in the fictional European nation of Drieden. The main character in this book is Caroline, the former princess of Drieden. You may remember mentions of her in The Royal Runaway. She’s Thea’s sister, who eloped with a Formula One driver and had her title revoked.

SCANDAL!

To find out what happened to her and why she’s single and ready to mingle with a former bodyguard, you’ll have to read the book and find out. #sorrynotsorry

But I will disclose that I enjoyed poking around the histories of modern European families for inspiration while writing of the Driedish royals’ many affaires du coeur.

In fact, nearly every major European royal family has had some pearl-clutching moments in the past century – and not the kind that they’re trying to drum up against our beloved American princess, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. (That time she wore a messy bun! Or sent emails in the morning! Or that time she dared to be pregnant at another person’s wedding! OMG. How will the monarchy ever survive such a dreadful person? /sarcasm font)

In Britain’s own history, let’s just recall that not one hundred years ago, they had a king renounce his throne to marry his divorcee American mistress (Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, later the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.)

And let’s just conveniently forget that same king and his wife were Nazi sympathizers, shall we?

One of the best things about the Netflix series, The Crown, is that it is reminding us of the complete and total messiness of Princess Margaret – her ill-fated affair with a married Royal Air Force Officer and then her marriage to a commoner (later the Earl of Snowden) who had affairs with men and women, which is totally fine – except when you’re married to the Queen’s only sister. 

Really, almost all the Windsors have been messier than Meghan Markle’s favorite hairstyle. Prince Charles dated Lady Sarah Spencer then married her little sister, Diana, then had a long-term affair with another old girlfriend (Camilla) who he then married (and really, I’m happy for those two kids. Just wish so many people hadn’t been hurt along the way, you know?)

And do we have to talk about the Yorks? Andrew’s soft porn actress girlfriend and the Duchess of York’s toes being sucked look positively innocent and sweet compared to the nastiness of the Duke of York’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

(Someone! Quick! Mention that Meghan Markle didn’t curtsy or hold her purse in the correct position to distract us from possible pedophilia accusations!)

I could go on and on about the Windsors but cross the channel and we find more and more scandalous royal stories fit to be written about in novels.

I’m sure someone would tell me that it is “unrealistic” in this day and age for a monarch to have not one, but multiple secret babies with girlfriends and mistresses. However… have you met Prince Albert of Monaco? The press has reported about two illegitimate royal babies but there’s always whispered speculation about more….

And in my books, Caroline’s titles are stripped when she elopes with a handsome race car driver, Stavros. Is that unrealistic? Not so much. Sweden’s King Carl Gustaf removed his sister’s, Princess Christina, HRH status when she married a commoner (and the same thing had been done to their other two sisters by their father) yet two years later, he married a German (non-royal) interpreter and gave her the title of Her Majesty Queen Silvia. All three of his children, Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine have married commoners as well (a personal trainer, a reality star and a businessman, respectively.) They’re all beautiful and have good hair and no one ever mentions that Queen Silvia’s father *might* have joined the Nazi party at one point anymore, okay?

The wedding of Prince Carl Phillip and Princess Sofia. No, not that one.

In fact, there seem to be just as many commoners in royal households as people who were manor-born and these real-life stories are so inspirational to me, a writer of royal romance. When Norwegian Crown Prince Harald met the love of his life in 1968, a commoner named Sonja, King Haakon reportedly had serious misgivings. But Harald declared that if he could not have Sonja, he would not marry anyone which would have effectively ended the Norwegian monarchy because he was the only heir to the throne.

A story fit for a romance novel, right?

King Harald’s oldest child, Princess Martha Louise, announced in the Spring of 2019 that she had found love as well. Actually, her exact words were, “her twin flame.” Sounds spiritual, doesn’t it? Rightfully so, since her twin flame is a celebrity shaman.

Y’all. I don’t think even I could make this stuff up.

The queens of the Netherlands and Denmark and Spain were all born commoners as well. Queen Letizia of Spain was a television journalist and divorced and supposedly she and King Felipe dated secretly just like Harry and Meghan did!

Similarly, Crown Prince Fredrick of Denmark met his Australian wife, Mary while at the 2000 Summer Olympics and flew back in forth in secret for over a year to see her until the press discovered them. (JUST LIKE HARRY AND MEGHAN.)

And finally, let’s talk about one of my absolute favorite royals: the woman formerly known as Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti.

Yes.

The one. The only. Queen Máxima.

The story goes, that when Máxima met then-Prince Willem-Alexander he only introduced himself as Alexander and didn’t tell her he was a prince until he knew if they would keep seeing each other. Their road to a picture perfect royal HEA was bumpy when the press discovered that Máxima’s father was an Argentine cabinet minister at the same time a bunch of people were rounded up, killed or disappeared. Ouch. Her parents weren’t even allowed to come to their wedding because of the… (dum dum DUM!) SCANDALO!

The Dutch royal family. heart eyes

When I read all this, I almost wonder if I haven’t gone far enough in my books! Maybe that’s why one blogger called The Royal Runaway “completely unrealistic.” Maybe I should have included more toe sucking and illegitimate kids and shady foreign connections.

Maybe I will fix that in the next book…

If you love royal romance and scandal, check out my Royal books here. (And pre-order THE ROYAL BODYGUARD!)

And follow my Facebook page for more royal fashion and discussion every Friday.

AND!

If you want more behind the scenes peeks at my writing and free snippets and chapters of my books, you are invited to join the Inner Circle - my newsletter with all the juicy stuff.

See you there!

Some links on this page may be affiliate links, which means I could receive a few coins for posting them. As always, thank you for your support and encouragement!