Starting a thing. Hope you’ll join me. A weekly schedule. Of making, and (through the making) processing (not necessarily producing). Of trying. Here’s this week’s plan.
Prep + Mise en Place
(1) Write a list of 30 things you love right now. If you’re feeling generous, share it in the comments section. If you don’t feel like sharing, that’s understandable. Sometimes not sharing makes it easier to write what you’re really feeling.
Prompts
(2) For your journal or commonplace:
- Make a list of your current preoccupations. Persons, places, things. Activities that have a hold of your imagination (mind,body, spirit). Your 30 Things list might provide some seeds for this, but it’s okay if you don’t love some of the things preoccupying you right now.
- Do a short, focused free write (aka: riff + fill) on one of your preoccupations (or one of your 30 things, if that works better).
(3) I’m gonna be taking the next fifteen weeks to write some nonfiction, so Tuesdays I’ll post the prompt I’ll be working on that week. Here’s this week’s:
- Write a 750-word autobiography. Write about who you are here-and-now. Don’t try to fit your entire life into a short essay. Pick something (probably narrative — a scene or anecdote — but not necessarily narrative) finite, something relatively small. Seemingly insignificant, maybe. But something that expresses an essential truth about you, your life.
If You’re Bored or Stuck
Copy down, by hand, word for word, a poem or passage or song you love dearly. Try to memorize it. If it’s a song, sing it — a capella. If it’s not a song, recite it. Audience not necessary. You are your audience for this.
Happy trying.
