Improbable Press Blog

My words cramp your style, don't they? You feel like you have to use them, don't you?Feck it, that's what I say. And so that's what I did.As of this week I've thrown out one whole word on the writing prompt and added an image, so that more of the words are yours, inventive and weird and whatever you want them to be. So now, what will you write? What do you see? Seeing Capes, Writing Sex, Accepting Challenges As usual, here are some sweet snippets from last week's stories, written by writers who each saw different things in the...

I've mentioned before that I'm lucky, right?That I get to post these weekly prompts to inspire writers and then I get the boon of the inspiration reading what you write.This week is no different and as usual I want MORE stories please. No, that's wrong, I want more of each story please. Bo, Narrelle, Hardboiledbaby, Anarion, and The Honeyed Moon, may I kindly request full novels of each of your prompt fills at your earliest convenience thankskbye. A Taste of Writing Futures Past Now here they are, tiny snippets of last week's larger tales, or in the case of one,...

The landscape was designed to mimic virgin deciduous forest. Every detail down to the colorful dots of tiny flowers and earthy fungal inhabitants. Songbirds chirped delicate melodies as small mammals darted across the ground, arguing over the trees' fertile sustenance.The plush grass yielded beneath their feet as they followed the path of a stream carved into the artificially sculpted earth, a miniscule current bubbling softly next to them. They settled on the bank of a pond, where colorful fish painted an aurora of light in the gently rippling water."You okay?" Garrett asked. "Why did you bring me here?" The tone...

I asked two creators how they felt about working together on their first collaboration for Improbable Press, the millennia-spanning Sherlock Holmes mystery-romance, A Question of Time. Their answers involved what it says on the tin, uh, in the title: nudity, corduroy, and dastardly adulthood. Kind of? So Jamie, tell me what you loved about collaborating with artist Janet Anderton? And while you're at it, any words of advice for other writers? Janet took in my naked words, fed them, gave them shelter and then dressed them in haute couture with her art. As for advice – start. Create as though...

Do you use the colours or the images when you build your stories? I always wonder what inspired who. For me it's nearly always the words, though once in awhile the images lend a hand. Last week's no lights prompt it was one single word shining out—bones. Somehow bones are elemental, like fire and water and sky. Everyone has something to say about bones. Scarpering right after bones was the prompt of light, and suddenly I knew what I wanted to write. Writing Bare Bones and Angry Oceans A sampling of last week's wonderful wee stories. Click the link above...