I find that using prompts is the easiest way to get started. I use online word generators to get three nouns, and then I start writing, even though I have no idea where I'm going. All I know is that I have to use all three words in the first paragraph, and then it all somehow flows from there, and ideas just keep coming.
That's how I wrote my latest novel, Jackolantern. I wanted to write a short story, so I used a random word generator to get my three nouns, and one of them was the word pumpkin.
As I started to write, ideas started popping up like crazy, and when I finished the short story, I realised that it would make a great book. So I set to work on an extensive outline and added loads more creepy action until I had a brilliant outline for a novel.
And because the whole story is centred around a pumpkin, I called it Jackolantern.
The obvious problem with the story being about a pumpkin is that it's an inanimate object, so it can't move or do anything
But when it keeps appearing on the main character's front porch, he naturally thinks that someone is putting it there to annoy him because he hates Halloween. Eventually he wonders if the pumpkin is alive because no matter how many times, or no matter in how many different ways he gets rid of it, it keeps coming back, and its face is looking furious.
I had fun writing this story and inventing so many ways for him to destroy the pumpkin, only to find it back on his porch again, looking more battered and more angry than before.
At first he is annoyed by it, but eventually, he's frightened of it and feels like he's losing his mind. Then he discovers what is really happening and he’s terrified.
This was definitely one of my favourite stories to write because the ideas just kept coming and coming.
Plus, Halloween is a dark and scary time, which is why there are so many horror stories and horror movies about it.
And, as I discovered, it's fun to write about.
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