The Curious Creative: Week 32

It’s Too Bad That _____ and _____ Never Met

This is the thirty-second 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:

In this week’s exercise, you will play with the imagined encounter between someone you know and a famous person.

Your Turn!

1. Choose a photograph of someone from your life. To find one, root through old envelopes of photos stuffed in your desk drawer or peruse the ones affixed to your fridge. Then, flip through a magazine and find a picture of a famous person- an actress, politician, sports player, etc 

2. Free associate about each of the photos for five minutes. Don’t labor over including every detail you know about them. Rather, allow the words you come up with to lead you in new directions. You can list words rather than write in complete sentences.

3. Place the photos next to each other. Study the expressions. Is Lionel Messi sneering at your mother? Is your childhood best friend winking at Barack Obama? Why is your next-door neighbor batting her eyes at Angelina Jolie’s adopted son? Freewrite on this imagined relationship for five minutes.

4. If you have time to start a piece, begin a poem or story in which these two people meet. Use what you know about their characters to describe this meeting. If you’d rather write more realistically, write in the style of an essay about why these two people should know each other and what they could add to each other’s lives.

How did you do? Even if you didn’t have time to write a piece after your freewrite, did you at least have fun imagining this encounter of two people who will probably never meet?

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 box 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: Smith, Michael C. and Suzanne Greenberg. “Photo Album,” Everyday Creative Writing: Panning for Gold in the Kitchen Sink, 2^nd ed. NCT Publishing Group, 2000, p. 71-73.