After all, "The bird sings with its fingers" But you did respond to a magazine prompt recently - do you see prompts etc to be secondary to, or outside of the creative process - of composition, which is always on the page? If I intend to write something, I can hold about half a sentence in my head without a keyboard. Or a listener. I can dictate a few pages without seeing the text - it's that the words need to leave somehow.
Ok, I think I see what you're saying—that the ideas just pop into your head seemingly from nowhere. Yeah, that's a fair way to start a story. You do need to stop and think a few times though, at some point. You can either do some of it beforehand or save it all for later. The crative act is really an ongoing conversation between the conscious and unconscious mind. When ideas hit you from nowhere, that's the unconscious doing its part. Still though, the very act of typing words so they make sense requires having thoughts in your head first. I suppose I just work the thoughts into some kind of cohenrent form before I start the typing part.
The prompt was just the first sentence. And, really, it was quite generic. The story could have gone anywhere from there. I don't think any prompts are a bad thing. A lot of them can be a fun challenge. And I don't think it is outside the creative process at all. Writers definitely make them their own. It can be interesting to see what sort of stories come about because of a prompt.
My process is just different from yours. It doesn't really matter if you understand it or it doesn't make sense to you. It's what works for me.
Not that different. Like I said, I just wait a bit longer to put the ideas down on paper. Creative thinking is basically a tennis match between conscious and unconscious, The conscious mind can prompt or question of make suggestions, and then waits for responses from the great mysterious beyond. It's how we always get ideas.
