Welcome to the monthly newsletter from Write Club, authored by me, Jayna Locke. Each month I publish some writing tips and inspiration as well as our writing prompt of the month. Well… except that I did not publish a prompt in April, for a variety of reasons, one of which was that I was recovering from an illness that landed me in the hospital. I am happily back on my feet now! So in this edition of the Write Club newsletter, I’m going to provide two prompts — the one our group used for inspiration in April and the one we are to be inspired by in May!
The April 2025 Write Club Prompt: Silver
I live in Minnesota (which borders Canada on the north and Iowa on the south) and we have some of the craziest cold weather and long winters in the northern hemisphere. April comes in like a lion and goes out like a ferocious little lion cub. We can only hope to be headed in the right direction by month’s end. We are told not to plant until May 15, for fear of frost, if that tells you anything!
If you love changing seasons, the world is your oyster. I mean, the cliché of a dark and stormy night aside, the weather in all its many and varied forms can be a splendid backdrop for your story’s mood, if not the basis for the story itself.
What happens when two people out on a trawler fishing for silver bass get overtaken by a monster storm? Or when lovers who are walking their dog and quarreling about whether to put silver on their wedding registry suddenly find themselves in the softest, most dreamy snowfall? Or a child looks out his window, fretting about whether a recent transgression means Santa knows he is not worthy of a bike for Christmas, hears the jangle of silver bells up on the rooftop?
See what I did there?
If there’s a take-away to the opening of this blog, I hope it is this: There is inspiration in everything. You can use any idea as a seed. Weather? Boring at first blush, perhaps, but think about the realities of weather under different scenarios and circumstances, and how rain or snow or a massive storm, or even the moody drip of drizzle on the window pane can create the circumstances for a scene and the plight of a character, and you can be off and running.
It’s the same with anything. A candy shop. A quarter found on a sidewalk. The skittish dog that has no collar and seems to need help but is too fearful of people to be approached.
When you let your mind wander and let settings, scenes and characters take shape in your mind, there is no end to what you might come up with. How do you get started on a story? What are your favorite ways of getting into creative writing mode? I’d love to hear from you.
The May, 2025 Write Club Prompt: Closet
This one is fun too. So many ideas come to mind immediately, don’t they? Spooky things. Creepy things. Hidden things. What if a couple moves into a new home, and the things they put in one of the closets keep disappearing? Even creepier, what if the things they put in that closet disappear, then reappear later — elsewhere… and altered.
What about a story idea inspired by The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe? You could have your character discover a secret passageway at the back of the closet that goes to a different land, a different time in history, or even a different planet. For a different planet, the character would have to be teleported somehow, to be sure. It wouldn’t be easy to pull off, but it would be fun for a sci-fi writer to try.
What ideas came immediately to mind for you? Don’t forget to write them down. One idea may inspire you now, another later. But if you don’t write it down, it will be gone forever.
I hope you found some inspiration here, and good luck with your writing!
Learn More About Write Club
Write Club is an online writers’ group for short story authors. We are open to adding a few writers with experience who are looking for an online writing community for mutual support, writing critique and comradery.
Although Write Club is small, we are distributed across the globe, and we connect with one another through our Discord server. Discord makes it possible for us to benefit from involvement in a writing community, so we get support and feedback for our stories, without traveling or taking too much time away from everything else going on in our lives — especially writing!
If you’re not on Discord yet, it’s super easy to set up an account. Just start at the link above. However, if you’d prefer to get in touch directly, you are welcome to reach out via this contact page: https://bit.ly/ContactJayna.
Note: If you enter our Discord server you will be in a waiting area where we can chat with you and learn more about your interests. If we are a fit for one another, we will welcome you in!
The Focus of Write Club: Getting Our Work Published
In Write Club, we are all short story writers with a focus on writing for mainstream publications, literary journals and genre magazines. We are committed to publishing our work in the many professional publications and short story anthologies accepting submissions. Some of our members are successfully published, and others are on their way, with the help of the honest yet caring critiques from our workshop members. In fact almost all of my published short stories were written from Write Club prompts.
How Does the Community Work?
Each month we launch a new writing prompt. Write Club members are required to write a short story based on the prompt, and then review and critique each other’s stories. These requirements are central to who we are. Every writer needs an outside eye to help them see what they may have missed and to provide perspective. This invaluable feedback can make all the difference in taking a story from promising to published.
The next phase is to revise our stories based on the workshop feedback, and (optionally) do another round of critiques. This method helps us to prepare our manuscripts for professional editors.
If you are a short story writer and are intrigued by Write Club, here are two options:
- Watch for our monthly writing prompts, which are published at the beginning of each month on jaynalocke.com. Feel free to use them to inspire your short stories. You can post them on Hive, Medium, Vocal, your WordPress blog, or wherever you like. Note that we do not offer critiques for those who are not members of our workshop. This is just for inspiration!
- If you are serious about short story writing and want to submit your work to publications such as literary, sci-fi or horror magazines, you are also welcome to check out our Write Club workshop.
What Are the Requirements for Write Club Members?
Here’s what’s expected of our members:
- You should already have a strong foundation in short story writing, excellent English skills, and a desire to continue your development as a fiction writer.
- You should have the goal of publishing your work in professional publications.
- You must be ready to commit to writing one story each month.
- You must be willing to provide helpful feedback to other writers and support their journey as well as your own. We are all required to critique every story produced within the community.
To connect with us and check out our workshop, just pop in as a visitor in our Discord server and tell us about your interests. We would love to connect with you to see if it seems like we’re a good fit for your writing journey!
Looking for Writing Resources?
I love to share tips and ideas about creative writing! Here are two treasure troves for you:
- You can find many of my tips and resources on my website, in the On Writing section.
- I also share writing tips in The Ink Well community on Hive. See the complete catalog for the full list of articles.
Have fun and keep writing!
Featured image source: sabinevanerp on Pixabay
About Jayna Locke
Jayna Locke is a Minnesota writer who has had a lifelong love of fiction. Her short stories have appeared in a range of literary journals, including Great Lakes Review, Portage Magazine, and Bright Flash Literary Review, as well as several anthologies.
Her collection of short stories, Somewhere in Minnesota, is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kirk House Publishers, and indie bookstores. She is reachable through her contact form at bit.ly/ContactJayna.