The Curious Creative: Week 18

Re-Imagining a Letter

This is the eighteenth installment of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for busy individuals interested in exploring their creativity. For the complete rationale, click here. 

My Thoughts:

Letters of Note is a great website that attempts “to gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos.” Each week, they update their site with a new letter by all sorts of people, from Anne Frank to Martin Scorsese.

This week, we’ll play around with one of the letters featured on the site. You’ll produce a kind of found poetry or manipulation poetry. Having the restrictions of already written content in place sometimes produces really creative results.

Your Turn!

1.    Visit http://www.lettersofnote.com, and click the bottom left link, “RANDOM LETTER. Click Here!” View the letter and related images it produces for you.

I just did it, and got a letter written by the woman from that famous photo of the sailor kissing a random nurse in the middle of Times Square celebrating the end of WWII.

2.    After the read it, fill in the blanks of this summary sentence: This letter is from _________ to _____________; the purpose of the letter is to ____________________.

For my example: This letter is from the nurse who was the subject of a famous photo celebrating the surrender of Japan in WWII to the photographer of that photo; the purpose of the letter is to reveal her identity and obtain a print of the picture 34 years after it was taken.

3.    Now re-imagine the purpose part of the summary sentence to include a new idea in the blank.

For my example: … the purpose is to confess her undying love for the sailor she has never been able to forget.

4.    Now re-write the letter, using as much or as little of it, adding and taking away whatever you wish, to make the letter fit your newly imagined purpose.

To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in from a google account so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box to the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing! 

The Curious Creative: Week 17

Choose Your Own Adventure MadLib

This is the 17th installment of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for busy individuals interested in exploring their creativity. For the complete rationale, click here. 

My Thoughts:

When my students are struggling with a new writing assignment because they are out of their element, being asked to do something they’ve never done before, I often give them templates to get them started. After using the template, many are then comfortable revising to make it their own, by doing things as simple as changing sentence structure or word choice. Maybe writing stories is something completely new for you, and you feel out of your element being asked to write something creative. For this week’s exercise, you will use a template from a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book jacket as your jumping off point.

Your Turn!

1. Before writing, let’s generate topics. On a piece of paper, make a list of difficulties, problems, and challenges you are facing in your life right now, from small to big, mundane to deep. Don’t worry- this will get more uplifting and fun in a minute!
2. Look at your list and make a blink decision – circle one that stands out to you.
3. Use the following template from the book jacket of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. Fill in the blanks according to the challenge you circled on your list. You are a _____________, about to embark upon your most challenging and dangerous mission. Equipped with _____________, your objective is to find _________________. You bravely face ___________, ________________, and ___________- but will you return to _____________ with ____________?
4. Once you complete this template, don’t stop. Turn your “editor brain” off (the voice that tells you, “This is silly. This is stupid.”), and just run with it. Think about this as the preface or introduction to your story. Have fun! This is all about creative play!

How did you do? Did some crazy details come out of your pen that made you wonder, “Where did that come from?!” Did the exercise feel playful and light, even though you were writing about a difficulty in your life? Do you even feel a little empowered to lean into this challenge in real life?

To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in from a google account so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box to the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing!

The Curious Creative: Week 16

Memories in Clothing

This is the sixteenth installment of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for busy individuals interested in exploring their creativity. For the complete rationale, click here. 

My Thoughts:

You don’t have to go very far to seek inspiration. For example, your closet of clothing is packed with possibilities. In this week’s exercise, you will use the emotions and memories attached to a piece of clothing as your starting point. Clothes evoke attachment, and are the bearers of sweet and painful memories. Like music, they are a powerful jumping off point for writing. This exercise is adapted from Michael Smith and Suzanne Greenberg’s writing exercise, “Quilting” (p. 63-66).

Your Turn!

1. Go through your closet and locate pieces of clothing that were significant to you at a certain points in your life. To get the pen moving, make a simple list that includes the clothing and the event/day when you wore it. Also jot down a few words about the feelings of that day.

2. Choose one of the items from your list. Scan your memory to make a second list or freewrite containing the details you remember about that day. Describe the event, the weather. Who was there and who was not there? How did you physically feel in the clothing, and how were you emotionally feeling? How did you acquire that piece of clothing and why did you choose to wear it that day? What was significant about that day? What led up to it and what happened after?

3. Now circle the “moments of heat” (lines in your freewrite/list that are emotionally packed). Use one of these moments as your starting off point for a poem, story or essay. If you’re ever feeling stuck when you think about how to begin an actual piece of writing, don’t stare at the white page. Simply add another layer of brainstorming to your process. For example, try simply writing the story of that day by beginning with the moment of heat.

How did you do? Did the multiple brainstorming steps lead you to discover an interesting or poignant truth about that day? Were you able to incorporate details about the clothing which added depth to your piece, grounding the emotions in concrete details?

To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in from a google account so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box to the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing! 

Work Cited

Smith, Michael C. and Greenberg, Suzanne. “Quilting.” Everyday Creative Writing:

Panning for Gold in the Kitchen Sink, 2^nd ed., p. 63-66.

The Curious Creative: Week 15

Old Photographs

Chadlington Village website 2017 www.chadlington.com

This is the fifteenth installment of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for busy individuals interested in exploring their creativity. For the complete rationale, click here. 

My Thoughts:

Sometimes being creative feels like a matter of finding inspiration. Sometimes finding inspiration means taking yourself out of your usual pattern in order to witness something different than what you see everyday. This week, you’ll find inspiration by entering the different world of an old photograph. 

Your Turn!

1. Take yourself on a date to a place that has old photographs. A museum will do, but even better is a coffee shop that has old books lying around, or an older relative’s home where you can peruse old photo albums.

2. Make yourself comfortable and look through the photos until you come across one that gives you pause. 

3. Freewrite for 10 minutes about its story. What was happening the day this photo was taken? Who and what were not included in the frame; what was standing outside the shot and why? Your freewrite can take the form of sentences as prose, or you can brainstorm and list words and phrases like a poem. The goal is to keep your hand moving. Whatever comes out of your pen is just creating space for even better ideas to come. Feel free to speculate and imagine to construct a reality that may or may not be true. 

How did you do? Did you enter a different world while freewriting, the world of the photo? Did your mind loosen up to imagine and create details of the moment the photo was taken? How did you feel after the exercise- engaged, alert, peaceful? These feelings are the telltale signs of what some might call “inspiration” and others call “being in the flow.”

To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in from a google account so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box to the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing! 

The Curious Creative: Week 14

Metaphor Bank

This is the fourteenth installment of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for busy individuals interested in exploring their creativity. For the complete rationale, click here. 

My Thoughts:

There’s something inherently fun about collecting beautiful things. For this week’s exercise, it’s not artwork or seashells or new shoes you will be pocketing; it’s metaphors. One of the steps to becoming a good writer is reading a lot, While reading, you are constantly exposing yourself to the craft. Consciously and subconsciously, your mind is picking up craft elements. Therefore, to get better at writing great metaphors, we must first read beautiful metaphors.

Your Turn!

1.     This week’s activity is going to be a ubiquitous task hanging around you all week. That is, you can’t simply sit down for 10 minutes and hunt for metaphors. Instead, I want you to pay attention all week to what you read and hear and be specifically aware of metaphors. Underline one in the book you are reading for pleasure. Circle one in the newspaper article you read in the morning. Jot one down from the radio, TV show, or podcast you listen to. Watch a movie, and listen for a metaphor. Try to collect at least three striking metaphors.

2.  In your notebook, write out the cool metaphors in longhand.

For example, here are two that I found this week in the book I am reading for my book club book, News of the World by Paulette Jiles:

·      “She had been laced into a thing that she could only imagine was for magical purposes, meant to confine her heart and her breath in a sort of cage to hold her forever like a shut fist that would never open.” (a 10-year-old Native American girl referring to the corset she had been put into by white people.)

·      “There was a half-moon waxing and it seemed to run in reverse between cascading clouds that flowed together and then pulled apart and then ran together again.”

3. Keep this Metaphor Bank page running in your notebook even after this week’s exercise. Stay aware of the metaphors you come across, and keep jotting down the beautiful ones. Write them out longhand. Say them aloud. Memorize them. Study them. What makes them work so well?

How did you do? Did you enjoy the process of copying down in longhand beautiful metaphors created by other Creatives? Did you savor their language and images?

To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in from a google account so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box to the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing! 

The Curious Creative: Week 13

Eavesdropping

This is the thirteenth installment of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for busy individuals interested in exploring their creativity. For the complete rationale, click here. 

My Thoughts:

US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera does an activity with children where they stand in a line and one-by-one write down words they hear around them. By the end, they have produced a group poem (Isokawa). Let’s do something equally simple for this week’s exercise.

Your Turn!

1. Take yourself to a public place – a coffee shop, a doctor’s waiting room, a store, a shared office, etc.

2. Spend five minutes jotting down words you hear. Don’t bother transcribing whole sentences; this is not a dictation exercise. Just make a long list or a cluster of words you overhear.

3. After five minutes is up, see what you have. You can do this next step in two ways. Either circle words which are thematically similar to ensure your piece will be cohesive, or circle words that simply stand out as interesting or fun, both in meaning and sound.

4. It’s a giant step to go from a list of words to a poem, especially if like 99.8% of the population, you don’t think of yourself as a poet. But I do encourage you for the next step to “write your heart out” for five minutes, using the circled words as jumping off points or links. You can write a poem by thinking about sparseness and linebreaks, or you can write prose such as the beginning of a short story (focus on setting and atmosphere).

How did you do? If you tried a poem, is your piece hodge-podge and goofy like a MadLib or does it have the potential to be a cohesive piece? If you tried prose, were you able to set the scene? Most importantly, did you have fun?

5.     To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in from a google account so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box to the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing! 

Work Cited

Isokawa, Dana. “Hayden Leads America’s Library.” Poets & Writers, Jan/Feb 2017, pp.

21.