Spring 2015----Day 1 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: Vacation Time Body: Think of a place you’ve never been—a city, a century, that crevice inside the key lock. Write as if you’re there. Capture the sights and sounds and smells and texture of this place. Discover it for the first time or revisit it for the seventh time. Own this space and take a vacation to someplace new. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Excerpt from “Repeat After Me” by David Sedaris, anthologized in Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Word from 1970 to the Present (2007) Body: My sister’s the type that religiously watches the feat segments of her local Eyewitness News broadcasts, retaining nothing but the headlines. She remembers that applesauce can kill you but forgets that in order to die, you have to inject it directly into your bloodstream. Announcements that cell-phone conversations may be picked up by strangers mix with the reported rise of both home burglaries and brain tumors, meaning that as far as she’s concerned, all telecommunication is potentially life threatening. If she didn’t watch it on the news, she read it in Consumer Reports or heard it thirdhand from a friend of a friend of a friend whose ear caught fire while dialing her answering machine. Everything is dangerous all of the time, and if it’s not yet been pulled off the shelves, then it’s certainly under investigation—so there. Prompt: Through this character analysis, the reader not only gets a humorous take on Sedaris’s sister Lisa, but also a sense of Sedaris’s character. Lisa is a paranoid, inattentive character who juxtaposes nicely against Sedaris’s overwhelming attention to detail and propensity to document everything. The way writers describe and portray characters, either fictitious or real, also exposes aspects of their personality. Without dialogue, create a composite scene or mini-scenes to describe a character. Pull from weird ticks or habits they might have and have your tone and personality come through as well. RIFF WORD: leftover LITERARY QUOTATION: “The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.” -- Walt Whitman (http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng372/preface.htm)
Spring 2015----Day 2 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: Calloused Thought Body: Chose a texture and consider everything it brings to mind. Smooth teeth and marble; rough glass and pavement; furry rabbits and blankets. List as many things that come to mind. You may start with single concepts and things and then expand to places and memories. Then look to see how some connect and others negate each other. Create a piece inspired by your mental map of a particular texture. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Poem entitled “I” by Michael Ryan, published in July/August 2013 Poetry, Vol. 202 No. 4 Body: When did I learn the word “I”? What a mistake. For some, it may be a placeholder, for me it’s a contagion. For some, it’s a thin line, a bare wisp, just enough to be somewhere among the gorgeous troublesome you’s. For me, it’s a thorn, a spike, its slimness a deceit, camouflaged like a stick insect: touch it and it becomes what it is: ravenous slit, vertical cut, little boy standing upright in his white communion suit and black secret. Prompt: Ryan personifies what is not usually personified in unconventional, surprising ways. Who would describe the pronoun “you” as gorgeous and troublesome? And yet that particular description stays and changes your perception of something as ordinary as a couple pronouns. Ryan is also deft at meandering in and out of concrete and abstract imagery—defining “I” as a literal, thin line in one line and then as a stick insect in the next. Question and take control of your pronouns. Be acutely aware of their role in a piece. Try beginning a piece in second-person and see how your details, tone, and diction change. RIFF WORD: cushion LITERARY QUOTATION: “One of the ploys of the great [writers] is to take a seemingly trivial or everyday subject and then bring interest to it.” -- Phillip Lopate (http://www.pw.org/content/interview_creative_nonfiction_writer_phillip_lopate?cmnt_all=1)
Spring 2015----Day 3 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: The Other Times Body: We tend to remember the firsts of things far more than the rest. But sometimes the extraordinary and interesting happens the fifth or eighth time. The second time you drove a car. The fourth time you cursed. The eighth time you had sex. Think or imagine a time you did something not the first time. Write from this place and give weight to all moments in time. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Excerpt from “Burl’s” by Bernard Cooper, anthologized in Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Word from 1970 to the Present (2007) Body: The overhead light in my father’s closet was a bare bulb. Whenever I groped for the chain in the dark, it wagged back and forth and resisted my grasp. Once the light clicked on, I saw dozens of ties hanging like stalactites. A monogrammed silk bathrobe sagged from a hook, a gift my father had received on a long-age birthday and, thinking it fussy, rarely wore. Shirts were cramped together along the length of an aluminum pole, their starched sleeves sticking out as if in a halfhearted gesture of greeting. The medicinal odor of mothballs permeated the boxer shorts that were folded and stacked in a built-in drawer. Immaculate underwear was proof of a tenderness my mother couldn’t otherwise express; she may not have touched my father often, but she laundered his boxers with infinite care. Even back then, I suspected that a sense of duty was the final erotic link between them. Prompt: Every single detail, down to a single word, is fraught with meaning here. Throughout the essay, Cooper is struggling with his sexual identity as a young boy, attempting to understand and place things into neat categories that aren’t so tidy in practice, waiting for the light to simply click. Cooper also ends this excerpt with a heavy speculation that was not initially expected. Think back to some small, seemingly insignificant time and search for the meaning behind every aspect. Write about that time in a larger, more impactful way and see if any conclusions form differently from what you first imagined. RIFF WORD: faux LITERARY QUOTATION: “It’s the ability to commit to writing, to write, the same way that you ... are! Anyway!” -- Allen Ginsberg (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4389/the-artof-poetry-no-8-allen-ginsberg)
Spring 2015----Day 4 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: Eavesdropping Body: Sometimes some of the best lines can be taken from everyday life. Open your ears and trust your instincts. If something you hear intrigues you, record it. Lines aren’t only born from sound either—listen to the silence just as intently. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Excerpt from “Kino” by Haruki Murakami (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/kino) Body: The man always sat in the same seat, the stool farthest down the counter. When it wasn’t occupied, that is, but it was nearly always free. The bar was seldom crowded, and that particular seat was the most inconspicuous and the least comfortable. A staircase in the back made the ceiling slanted and low, so it was hard to stand up there without bumping your head. The man was tall, yet, for some reason, preferred that cramped, narrow spot. Prompt: This opening paragraph toys with the reader’s initial perspective and assumptions. We are introduced to “the man” from an omniscient point of view as we also slowly get a sense of the setting. But, immediately following this opening paragraph, Murakami introduces the actual protagonist of this short story—Kino. It’s as if the camera dramatically pulls back or we take away the almost-microscopic lens through which we viewed the first paragraph. Try this sort of technique, using dramatic cuts and shifts in perspective and narration. Don’t wait and ease into it, either. Start right at the onset of the piece, right in the opening line. RIFF WORD: contour LITERARY QUOTATION: “Writing fiction takes me out of time. I sit down and the clock will not exist for me for a few hours. That’s probably as close to immortal as we’ll ever get.” -- David Foster Wallace (http://www.azevedosreviews.com/2014/09/10/david-foster-wallaces20-quotes-on-writing/)
Spring 2015----Day 5 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: Thrifted Stories Body: Many of our stories were not experienced firsthand. Our families pass down legends and our friends of a friend’s friend tell us tales. Think of a secondhand story that impacted you in a particular way. Maybe its impact wasn’t recognized until several years after you first heard it. Maybe you still don’t understand its significance. Write about a secondhand experience and extrapolate additional meaning, meaning you did not gain initially. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Excerpt from “One Gram Short” by Etgar Keret (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/01/one-gram-short) Body: I still don’t feel good about it. Not because I think it’ll be dangerous but because I’m afraid it’ll be unpleasant. I just can’t handle unpleasant. To sit with unfamiliar people in unfamiliar houses, with that kind of heavy atmosphere looming—it does me bad. “Nu,” Avri says, “just go up, and after two minutes make like you got a text and have to run. But don’t leave me hanging. He asked that two people show up. Just walk into the house with me so I don’t look like an idiot, and one minute after that you can split.” It still doesn’t sit right, but when Avri puts it that way it’s hard for me to say no without coming off like a penis. Prompt: This scene is pivotal in creating the tension and eventual climax of this short story. Keret has a strong command of tone, primarily through the first-person narration. Nu, the protagonist, is a nervous, almost neurotic character and the reader is trapped in that head the entire time. This technique creates a sort of claustrophobic head high and is crucial in building strong, trusted narrators. Fully commit to your character’s distinctive voice by reading aloud and trusting precise diction. Worm your way into your characters heads and don’t let the reader find their way out. RIFF WORD: statute LITERARY QUOTATION: “What I’ve chosen, what’s happened unchosen, can’t be unmade or redone. Poetry, though, is a door that only continues to open. Even the unchangeable past changes inside a poem. Not the facts, but the feeling, the comprehension. The heft of a life in the hands grows both lighter and weightier. Over time, my life has become more saturated with its shape and made-ness, while my poems have become more and more free.” -- Jane Hirshfield (http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Interview-with-poet-Jane-Hirshfield6128947.php)
Spring 2015----Day 6 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: Dis/Connect Body: Technology today has a unique and ubiquitous place in our lives. Live out both extremes and see how the presence and absence of digital technologies affects your writing. 1) Disconnect and go for a walk, a run, a bike ride. Explore a place outside you’ve never seen and your Instagram followers will never know you’ve visited. Leave the phone at home. Take only something to write with and something to write on. Write down anything and everything that comes to mind. See where a mind unfettered can lead your characters and plots. 2) Connect and log onto your laptop or cellphone or tablet. Open up several tabs, one for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, your favorite news source, your favorite blog, your second favorite blog. Explore any and all rabbit holes. Sample from the endless network of information. Open more and more tabs and devour all content. Digest and write from what inspires you. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Excerpt from The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, from “Part Three: Words Misunderstood” Body: Franz said, “Beauty in the European sense has always had a premeditated quality to it. We’ve always had an aesthetic intention and a long-range plan. That’s what enabled Western man to spend decades building a Gothic cathedral or a Renaissance piazza. The beauty of New York rests on a completely different base. It’s unintentional. It arose independent of human design, like a stalagmitic cavern. Forms which are in themselves quite ugly turn up fortuitously, without design, in such incredible surroundings that they sparkle with a sudden wondrous poetry.” Sabina said, “Unintentional beauty. Yes. Another way of putting it might be ‘beauty by mistake.’ Before beauty disappears entirely from the earth, it will go on existing for a while by mistake. ‘Beauty by mistake’—the final phase in the history of beauty.” Prompt: Particularly in this section, Kundera writes long-winded paragraphs of dialogue for his characters, resembling a play. These characters are opinionated, articulate, and elegant in their dialogue, like they are always at the crux of a heated philosophical discussion. Kundera stretches out an idea and has the characters debate large, abstract concepts. And underneath it all is a sense of fervor and passion—his characters are far more sensual than stoic. Fuel your characters with this sense of passion. Write paragraphs and paragraphs of dialogue, perhaps debating a complex issue, and see where your characters take you. Often they will lead to unexpected places. RIFF WORD: ribbed LITERARY QUOTATION: “I look for astonishment [in a poem]. I look to be moved, to have my view of the world in which I live somewhat changed, enlarged. I want both to belong more strongly to it or more emphatically to it, and yet, to be able to see it, to have -- well, it's almost a
paradox to say this -- a more compassionate distance.� -- Mark Strand (http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/strand/poetics.htm)
Spring 2015----Day 7 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: Bonds Body: Attachment is a loaded concept—evoking intimacy, closeness, wants and needs. But what we are attached to may not reciprocate. It might not be able to. A bond to something is not static, either. Think of your attachments, those material and immaterial. Deconstruct what these bonds could mean and write from a place of flux, both of distance and closeness. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Poem entitled “Catchy Tunes” by Robert Thomas (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/246030) Body: It’s not just this. Every written word is a suicide note. And a love letter, too. There may be no one to talk to who would get it, but if you write it down maybe someone will get it after you’ve left the room, or in five hundred years, or maybe someone from Sirius, the Dog Star, will get it. The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen claimed he was born on Sirius. You remember him: the genius who said the crashing of planes into the World Trade Center was the greatest concert ever held, although he later conceded the audience had not been given the option to not attend and that somewhat diminished its perfection. I heard Stockhausen interviewed at Davies Symphony Hall before the orchestra played one of his works that sounded to me like the voices of the parents in A Charlie Brown Christmas if they’d been arguing about real estate. No, I was not impressed by Karlheinz. His daughter Christel was a flautist in the orchestra, and she joined him for the interview and said her father would take her and her brother out on the lawn
of their summer house outside Cologne (this was years before he was on the cover of Sgt. Pepper) and teach them to read each constellation as notes on a stave and to sing the words of their favorite nursery rhymes to the stars’ melody: “The dog ran away in the snow” and “Go get the sleigh in the cellar.” It was a game but it was hard: work and play at once. Their father explained to them, “God does not write catchy tunes.” You could tell she meant it to be a charming story, but the audience sat in silence. Suffer the little children. Prompt: The opening and closing stanzas (or rather lines) of Thomas’ poem are jarring, unsettling. The first line is ambiguous: what exactly is “this”? Is it the poem as a whole or each individual word of the poem? Perhaps both. Thomas takes the reader on a journey you didn’t quite understand when you boarded the train and ends with an abrupt squealing of the brakes. Dialogue and loose narrative form help propel the poem forward to its dramatic, dark closing line. Write an opening and closing line (or two) that are impactful, even forceful. Then fill out the middle with content that drifts around, gradually picking up a detail or character during the journey. The opening and closing line(s) do not have to directly relate or tie back to one another. Revel in ambiguity and the strength of these lines on their own. RIFF WORD: pattern LITERARY QUOTATION: “I try to be realistic, but the characters are smarter and more eloquent than regular people. It’s part of why I have them talk so slowly—or, really, listen so much—because I didn’t want the dialogue to be repetitive and snappy and sound phony.” -- Matthew Weiner (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6293/the-art-of-screenwriting-no4-matthew-weiner)
Spring 2015----Day 8 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: Tics and Habits Body: We all have known someone who’s guilt of a habit or two. Sometimes those habits are noticeable, normal even, and other times they are hidden and unusual. Either write about your own neuroses or craft a quirk for someone else. Make the habit the foundation of that character, though, and build around it, instead of adding it in as an afterthought. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Excerpt from The Trial by Franz Kafka Body: It puzzled K., at least it puzzled him looking at it from the policemen’s point of view, that they had made him go into the room and left him alone there, where he had ten different ways of killing himself. At the same time, though, he asked himself, this time looking at it from his own point of view, what reason he could have to do so. Because those two were sitting there in the next room and had taken his breakfast, perhaps? It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable. Prompt: Kafka’a use of third-person limited throughout The Trial heightens the sense of confinement, being trapped in one’s head. We only know the other characters as they serve, or rather imprison, the protagonist K. Kafka does not use italics for inner thoughts and weaves in and out of narration and inner dialogue. The effect is paralyzing, like the reader is only getting a sliver of the entire story. Using third-person limited, craft a piece where you only tell a portion of what’s actually occurring. Leave your readers partially in the dark, and manipulate that cover of darkness as little or as much as needed. RIFF WORD: ephemeral LITERARY QUOTATION: “When I am writing, there is no pleasure in revealing the facts of my life. Pleasure comes from the art-making impulse, from assembling language into art.” -- Henri Cole (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6312/the-art-of-poetry-no-98-henricole)
Spring 2015----Day 9 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: Foreign Terrain Body: Every day we see objects and signs that are familiar to our eyes through repeated exposure. But what if you had never been exposed to them. What would something as commonplace as a table look like? What would its function be? How would you describe it? Write as a foreigner to your own experiences. Take nothing for granted and write about something ordinary through new, unexposed eyes. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Poem entitled “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime” by William Carlos Williams (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/4671) Body: Sorrow is my own yard where the new grass flames as it has flamed often before, but not with the cold fire that closes round me this year. Thirty-five years I lived with my husband. The plum tree is white today with masses of flowers. Masses of flowers load the cherry branches and color some bushes yellow and some red, but the grief in my heart is stronger than they, for though they were my joy formerly, today I notice them and turn away forgetting. Today my son told me that in the meadows, at the edge of the heavy woods in the distance, he saw trees of white flowers. I feel that I would like to go there and fall into those flowers and sink into the marsh near them.
Prompt: It is easier to talk and explain one’s personal feelings and emotions, but it takes a certain sense of empathy to grasp another’s. Take a strong emotion (love, lust, jealousy, pain, etc.) and write about this emotion through another person’s perspective. Boil down the strength of these emotions to a palpable pulp--digested by the character and inwardly understood by all. Steer clear of melodrama, and instead use simplified language and narration. RIFF WORD: gild LITERARY QUOTATION: “As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.” -- Ray Bradbury (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6012/the-art-of-fiction-no-203-raybradbury)
Spring 2015----Day 10 DAILY WRITING PROMPT Title: Political Prowess Prompt: Everything is charged with politics and activism. Opinions circulate at the speed of a mouse click, and polemics are born in seconds. Get political. Stand up and speak out for an injustice you see in the world right now. Writing gives power and voice to issues that may not be addressed as much as they should. Give them their proper voice. DAILY READING---WRITING EXERCISE Title: Excerpt from “Considering the Lilies” by Rebecca McLanahan, anthologized in In Brief: Short Takes on the Personal (1999) Body: It’s 1965, and I’m sharing a bed with my cousin the night before her wedding. She’s eight years older, petite and boyish, still a virgin. In the dark she says to the ceiling, I have the kind of body that only looks good naked. The tone is half lament, half expectation. For years she’s been hiding beneath her clothes a lovely secret which is about to be spoken. Prompt: There is a lyricism to McLanahan’s prose that is intoxicating. She picks and culls only what she needs and cuts anything superfluous. Construct a tight, concise piece in which every word bears significance, building even greater meaning for the lines, and then the work as a whole. Chose adjectives carefully, reduce prepositions, and don’t be afraid to jump around in the narrative. Let the reader fill in some of the gaps created from your economy of language. RIFF WORD: contact LITERARY QUOTATION: “Every once in a while I will pick up a page and it has something, but what is it? It seems so unlike what poetry ‘as we know it’ is. But at other moments I feel very much at home with it. It's a question of a sudden feeling of unsureness at what I am doing, wondering why I am writing the way I am, and also not feeling the urge to write in another way.” -- John Ashbery (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3014/the-art-of-poetry-no-33-johnashbery)