Editor’s Note: These prompts aren’t just for writers. Replace the words “writing” or “words” with whatever it is you’re trying to do (lose weight, start a company, be a better wife or husband), and you should be able to kick your bad habit of start-up mentality.

By Melanie Feliciano

Start-up mentality begins with New Year’s Day. Everyone thinks they are going to start doing something different that will radically transform their lives forever. Like the bimbo in Forrest Gump: “A new yeahh…everyone gets a second chance…”  But really, their enthusiasm lasts for a month, if that, and by February, they are back to their old tricks. Why? Jumping on someone else’s train. ADD. Inability to make a commitment and get thru the tough times. Essentially, being an instant gratification-wam-bam-thank-ya-ma’am American is WHY…

Take your new blog, for example. You wrote a couple of posts. You added a hot pic on your “about” page. You told your mom about it.

Now what? Oh, need to pay taxes…oh, need to take the kids to the dentist…oh, my job is increasing my hours and lowering my pay. I don’t have T-I-M-E to blog anymore…oh, and weirdly enough, I ran out of motivation.

And so, the blog goes in the same closet as the foot massager, that cool tranquility fountain and the casio keyboard you got for Christmas in 1986 (that was fun for a week!)…or maybe you’ve moved on to another social networking tool with cooler features ( myspace to facebook)…

Hmmm. Perhaps you’ve got a behavioral pattern to observe here. If you are a baby boomer and any other generation afterwards living in the US, you’ve got a classic case of consumption. LOL.

It’s not your fault, especially if you were born and raised in the suburbs, where you learned that the epicenter of culture was located in the living room where life was lived in 30-minute segments.

[Images of my 5th grade journal]

They hooked you from the very beginning. Your unsuspecting, innocent little brain got captured by THEM. By IT. By the MATRIX.

It is one thing to acknowledge this fact…it is quite another to escape, remain escaped and to defeat temptation to return. For Christians, this battle is called “backsliding.” Sounds like fun, right? Baaaacccksliiiiding….yeah, Boyeeee. That’s why I didn’t remain a convert for long when I attended Palm Beach Atlantic College (now PBAU).

“I’m too young to live such a boring existence!” and so back into the matrix I went, first to London, where a Latina was unique among pasty Brits and where I studied fantasy and mystery literature while visiting the greatest museums of artwork on the planet.

The Matrix was goood. Like Samuel Jackson says in Pulp Fiction, “bacon is gooood, pork chops are gooooood.”

Then I transferred to UNC Chapel Hill to study journalism and subsequently became disillusioned with the Matrix again. Ugh! All the girls are conformist sorority bitches! Ugh! All the guys drink beer and want to be lawyers! Ugh! Ugh!

So I dropped out of the matrix again, this time in Ann Arbor,Mich. Who the heck wanted to live in the Midwest after graduation??? Not many, so that is where I went and began working in a burgeoning underground economy…the Internet.

Did that for a year, but I started to feel lonely and isolated, so I rejoined the Matrix again, this time Denver where I dated a boy who grew up in the suburbs just like me and that was great cuz we understood each other, but then I felt trapped again…does this scenario remind you at all of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Yeah, I’m Kate Winslet’s character to a T…the girl who gets bored easily and doesn’t know how to sit still (although, to her credit, she DOES become aware of her pattern, and she learns how to deal with it. There is hope!!). But anyways, major Hollywood films study US market demographics and base characters off them in order to make a profit. The too niche, too original stories with actually unique characters don’t make it to mainstream. Get it? Got it? Good.

OK, so back into our lesson – you got a blog, you got a niche unique to you, but no time, a bad case of ADD and writers block.

Here are 7 writing prompts to get you going:

1. Metaphorically kill yourself…collective GASP!! I’m serious. One weekend last year when I was totally fed up with everything but too egotistical to do anything as crazy as slitting my wrists, I watched Fight Club over and over – about 7 times (I like that number, if you haven’t noticed), and decided to metaphorically kill myself just to see what would happen afterwards. It sounds twisted, morbid and all around unhealthy, but aren’t those the same adjectives you could use for most of the films and TV shows you watch on a daily basis? BAM! I love making a point (I have a big, Leo ego, remember?).

Lots of things happened to me as a result, but I won’t go into that now – do it yourself and then write about how you feel.

2. I’m not sure how to top that prompt, really. But I’m finding at the ripe ol’ age of 33, I’m prolific as hell. I blame it on my reproductive cycle. Same energy it takes to have a baby is same energy to create art.  I can thumb-type coherent ideas into my iPhone as fast as a Japanese cell phone novelist. That’s prompt #2 – get a tech device that will allow you to pontificate no matter where you are so that it’s not such a drag thinking about sitting at a desk with a laptop. There is nothing more liberating (as a writer, at least) than being able to write a blog post while laying in bed, on the beach, or on an airplane. Yeah!! I actually type an email, send it to myself, then paste it into my blog afterwards, when I’m on my computer so that I can edit it.

3. I am writing too much, probably, but I am sitting on a plane to San Francisco, and what else could I do? I could strike up conversation with the guy next to me but he’s got his earbuds in. BUT! Wait, last plane ride I took I sat next to an older woman, and what I have realized about people who are older and not as attached to their personal technology, is that they are a wealth of information and eager to talk. So, this writing prompt is: ” Talk to strangers and then write down what they say and your observations about them.” Be careful, however – you don’t want to be the rude or annoying guy on the elevator talking to people who don’t want to be talked to. I learned this the hard way…as usual!!

4. Avoid an argument with your significant other by writing – no, don’t publish this, doofus, unless you really want to get yourself into trouble…this is just a writing prompt to get your juices going, remember? I can’t emphasize enough that you should have a 3-draft rule before hitting that “Publish” button. Again, I learned this the hard way. I won’t go into detail, but just keep in mind that this is America and people like to throw those words, “law suit” around.

5. Interview someone “famous” who will expect to see the article on your blog eventually. This adds some pressure for you to follow through and get over your unmotivated hump of despair. I am still catching up with interviews, myself, so don’t get too carried away and do 5 interviews a week and then forget about them months later.

6. Meditate. This means lie on your back and just breathe. Don’t write. In fact, close your eyes. Shut out all input for 5 measly minutes. Just 5, dammit! Is your life sooooo freaking important that you can’t shut down, like a computer, for 5 minutes? You may be amazed at what silence does to give you fresh ideas and renewed motivation and energy.

7. Find a brainstorming buddy. There are people you meet in life and you’ll talk about your cool ideas and how “someday” you’ll do this or that…but someday never comes and this person isn’t particularly effective in pushing the right creative buttons in your operating system. And then there are others who can push your buttons at exactly the correct time and voila! Like magic, you get up off your butt and do the things you kept talking about. This is a rare writing prompt, and I would only recommend this to full-grown conscious adults who understand the rhythmic syncopation of yin and yang energies.

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday is dedicated to Blogging for Money on www.BiscayneWriters.com…I mean, if we remember or don’t have something else to do…ha ha ha.