Do you have trouble getting going with your creative writing in the morning? Or afternoon? Or evening?

Or do you sometimes sit down at the computer and stare at the blank page, not entirely sure of where to start?

I know some of you don’t have that problem. You open a document and start typing, at your scheduled hour, every day. Not me! I’m the exact opposite. My schedule is random and I have the worst time when it comes to actually putting my fingers on those keys for the sake of my own creativity.

I find I tend to get caught up in other things instead – life, blogging, emails… you name it, it’s a distraction.

Storypraxis is a way to escape all that, for just 10 minutes every day. It was started by freelance editor Andy Meisenheimer (former editor for Zondervan Books) and is a “community blog that is dedicated to helping writers write creatively every day”.

Six days a week, a prompt is posted. It’ll be a word, or a short phrase. You open a document (or your email), set a timer, and write for 10 minutes. That’s it. Ten minutes.

Use your imagination and your creative freedom to create, based on that prompt.

Send your story/response to the prompt in to the blog, and a sample of the stories from that day will be posted to encourage and entertain the rest of the participants.

There’s no commenting allowed on the posts, because it isn’t a critique session. It’s an exercise in creativity, and – this is key – no polishing or editing beyond proofreading. A way of getting you to write, freely, with no barriers but your own imagination.

I’ve participated several times already, and plan to continue doing so!

I met Andy at Write!Canada 2010 earlier this year, so don’t worry that he’s going to run off with your stories or mess with them or anything. He’s cool and genuinely cares about writers and creativity.

I should also mention that I learned about storypraxis from one of my favorite people, award-winning author Mags Storey (who wrote a really awesome YA book called If Only You Knew that you should read, seriously… it won one of the biggest Canadian literary awards this year! …here’s a link to a sample chapter! and another link to a great review!). I met her last year at Write!Canada 2009, and have been privileged to stay in occasional contact since then (and we’ve helped each other out on a few things since then, too). So you should go order her book first, THEN try out storypraxis. Got it?

Come try storypraxis with me today!

Here are a few links to what I’ve contributed so far:

book burning by Faith Boughan

expecting a lie by Faith Boughan

Want to try?

Here’s today’s prompt: imperfection.