Writing prompt shortcuts: how I stopped wasting an hour staring at a blank page

I kept hitting the same wall every Tuesday night with my prompt responses. I would read the prompt, think about it for 45 minutes, then write three sentences and delete them. After six weeks of this I tried a different approach that I saw mentioned in a comment thread on a 2018 post here. I set a timer for 10 minutes and forced myself to write the absolute worst, most cliche draft I could manage, no editing at all. Then I took that trash version and looked for one weird detail or line that felt alive, and I built the real story around just that piece. It sounds backwards, but my last three responses have all gotten positive feedback, and one got picked as a weekly highlight. Has anyone else tried writing a deliberately bad first draft on purpose, or do you have a different trick for getting past the initial freeze?

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taylor.betty13d ago

Tried that once and it just made me feel worse about my writing. Blank page wins most days.