The Curious Creative: Week 21

The Symbol of an Object

This is the twenty-first 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:

Objects are excellent writing prompts. They keep us rooted in concrete details, yet are also evocative, containing the possibility for symbolizing something larger. In this week’s exercise, you will focus on an object you associate with a loved one, and play around with its metaphorical significance. Even though you’ll be brainstorming about a real person in your life, you will generate characterization as if you’re preparing to write a story with him/her as your character.

Your Turn!

1. Think of a dear loved one. Think of him as a character in his own life story. 

2. Choose one object that is important to her— something that could be her symbol. For instance, my grandmother collected the free porcelain figurines that came in the Rose Tea boxes. She kept them in a cigar box, taking them out only to bring her luck during Bingo games. What is an object you associate with your father? Mother? Best friend?

3. List possible metaphors for that object. Think of possible abstract qualities it could represent, such as warmth, motherhood, or protection.

4. Then think of other objects that could also represent those qualities. In other words, what other things could have held the same meaning in his/her life?

How did you do? Did you arrive at new interesting metaphors for the qualities that embody your loved one? Did this character work inspire you to use your loved one as a character in your writing? Or maybe it inspired you to create a new fictional character starting with an object?

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! 

Inspired by: 

Szilagyi, Anca.“The Magic of Objects.” Ploughshares at Emerson College.         

http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/the-magic-of-objects/

The Curious Creative: Week 20

Lists

This is the twentieth 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:

A list is a powerful tool. I have my students make lists before they write essays. The physical action of jotting down words helps them get “unstuck” after staring at an essay prompt and a white page. I write lists to quiet my mind; if it’s written on paper, I don’t need to waste mental energy trying to remember what I need to do. Lists can also be playful. McSweeneys, a daily humor site, publishes humorous lists.  Lists can satisfy our need to collect and consume beautiful and interesting things. Many writers make lists of interesting, cool-sounding, beautiful-to-look-at, rhyming words. Making a list of words not only produces resources for later projects but also serves as a physical/mental activity that gets the writing process going. This week’s exercise is quite simple: you will make a list!

Your Turn!

1. Grab a book off your bookshelf- the more esoteric, the better.
2. Leaf through it and jot down words that stand out to you. Choose words that are funny, strange, cool-sounding, rare, and/or attractive. Go quickly; don’t stress over your choices.
3. After you fill a page or two with these words, circle a few that seem like treasures.
4. Write one at the top of a blank page. Freewrite about it. What is it? What does it mean? What does it smell like? Where can you find it? What can you use it to describe? What type of person would say it?

How did you do? Did it feel playful? Did you enjoy the feeling of gathering, a similar satisfaction to consuming treasures, as in shopping or eating? Does your freewrite have a seed for a story or a poem?

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 19

An Object to Tell a Story

This is the nineteenth 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:

Objects have stories. This week, you will use an everyday object – a wristwatch, a coffee cup, a cologne bottle- as inspiration to create characters, a scene or a story. You will use the details of the object to evoke memories of times gone by- either a real or imagined world of nostalgia.

Your Turn!

1. Find the oldest object in your home.
2. Title your blank piece of paper by the name of the item, ie, “A Coffee Cup.”
3. Write down concrete details about the way it looks, feels, smells.
4. Look at your object until it is communicating with you. What places has it been uprooted from? Who did it used to belong to? Write down any imagined details of place or character- the way the room looked where it was used, how the person who used it moved and talked, etc.
5. From your notes, begin a story about your object with “Left behind in a…” 

How did you do? Did the object evoke some interesting concrete details? Were you able to (re)create a world of days gone by? Did an interesting character or premise emerge that you might use as a jumping off point for another piece?

6. As a longer-term project, you can write a catalog of entries about several objects. In reading through all the catalog entries, a narrative might emerge.

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! 

Inspired by Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul, Turkey and his “Modest Manifesto for Museums.”

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!