Filthy Writing Prompt

Was one of your new year's resolutions to write more?  And have you been living up to the promise?  If you've been having trouble finding the time to scribble, take five minutes right now and have some fun on the page.

Here's the exercise:

You are helping your boyfriend transport his paintings from one studio to another.  There are several oil paintings in the backseat of your car.  You are alone.  And you can't stop thinking about the boyfriend's disclosure that morning: he had an affair.  And here you are like a huge sucker helping him move his paintings anyway?  You sort of snap, dislocate from reason.  You see a gas station and decide to go through the car wash with your windows rolled down to ruin the bastard's paintings.

Write the crazy moment when the car is actually getting doused with soap and water, and let your reader in on the wild thought process.  How does the character feel as the "baptism" goes on?

Have fun and happy writing,
Josh

PS: Would you like to read a new short story of mine?  Here it is.

PPS: Today is my mom's birthday.  Happy birthday, good looking.  It was great seeing you last month.

Thanksgiving Writing Prompt

What would you do if your neighbor stole your turkey? I mean, you’re convinced your surly neighbor, Larry, stole your damn bird. One minute it was in the deep freeze in your garage, and the next time you checked, poof! the poultry’d gone missing. So you panic—Thanksgiving is almost here, after all—and run next door to Larry’s to confront the mean prick.

What do you say? What happens? Does he have it? Do you get it back? Write the scene and solve the mystery!

Happy writing and happy thanksgiving,
Josh

Your imagination needs a walk

I wonder why it's hard to let our characters be rowdy on the page. Have we been so conditioned to be tidy, respectful, sanitized citizens that it's even seaped into our fiction? When was the last time one of your characters made a big ol' gross wonderful fool of her/himself? When was the last time things got a little nuts on the page?

So in this prompt, go wild. Let your imagination swerve all over like a drunk driver.  Pretend your imagination is Nick Nolte, enjoying a couple cocktails and revving the engine.

Here goes:

Character X is going through a rough patch. She/he isn't so much "going through" said rough patch, but is kind of squatting there, thrown down some roots and enjoying an extended "vacation" in the rough patch.

And today just happens to be the day when she/he ain't gonna take it no more--they suddenly survey the squalor of their apartment: the to-go boxes, the empty booze bottles, the fact that their cell phone hasn't rang in six days, and they decide to tear it all down. She/he malfunctions and starts ripping the place apart, smashing and destroying the whole joint.

What's going through their mind while they deconstruct their worlds?

1 page, 17 pages, it doesn't matter. Just enjoy getting some words down. Your job isn't that important. Take 5 minutes for yourself.

Happy writing,
Josh

Free Write: Steal Franzen's Glasses

Not sure if you heard, but a couple blokes thought it would be a hoot to steal Jonathan Franzen's glasses and hold them for ransom this week.  This got me thinking: maybe we all (consciously or otherwise) want to steal Franzen's spectacles.  Here's this week's writing prompt:

"You" are convinced that Franzen's literary success is a product of his magical glasses.  They give him narrative super-powers.  "You" know that all you need is to reappropriate them and stardom is inevitable...

So you go to a reading of his, and afterward, while he's signing books, "you" approach the table and once you hand him a copy to autograph, that's when you make your move, trying to rip the glasses from his head.  What happens?  Do "you" get away with it?  And do they have magical powers for "you" too?

Happy writing,
Josh

P.S. Your imagination will thank you for letting it out of solitary confinement, walking it around the yard...

P.P.S. Your art matters.

Free Write: Magical Realism burns calories

Let's lure your imagination off the couch, out of its filthy wifebeater, and into the sunshine for some much needed rejuvenation. 

Today's prompt will liberate your mind like few writing styles can.  Magical realism blends the real and the "unreal."  The fun part is that the magical elements of the story mix with details of the status quo. For example, in Kafka's masterpiece "The Metamorphosis", the main character wakes up one day as a giant bug.  He can talk, think, etc; the only minor detail is, oh yeah, he's an insect... no big deal...

Here's our prompt: Along the lines of Kafka's famous novella, let's also play with the dynamic of someone waking up in an unanticipated state.  Except in our example, it's a teenage girl and she wakes to find out that the word "Sad" is written across her forehead.  She's supposed to leave for school in 30 minutes.  Her parents are expecting her for breakfast in 15.  And she's panicking, scared, embarrasssed... because she is sad, but how did it get on her forehead? She doesn't want the whole world to know the truth.

What does she do?  Have fun playing with the cliche "it was written all over her face."  Why has the word "sad" suddenly appeared?

Happy writing,
Josh

P.S. If there was a word mysteriously written on your forehead today, what would it be?

Free Write: cardio for your imagination

In my workshop last week, somebody said they had trouble with plots, as in "How do I make them interesting? What's the magic formula to make a reader interested in a series of events?"

It's never just about plot points, action. What happens externally (the plot) has to mean something to the characters emotionally. There has to be symbiosis between your protagonist and the events you as the author have decided to put them through i.e. you select a certain scenario to reveal X detail about who they are. You apply certain pressures to your players, and they reveal things about their nature via their responses to said stimuli. In a sense, the characters characterize themselves. We as readers watch their behaviors and form opinions about them, why they do what they do, psychological realism, etc.

Today's prompt is about intersection between character and action. Try this:

There's this lady Lisa who feels like she's treading water--has felt this way for a long time, actually--that she's making no progress in her life. She works, sleeps, has a boyfriend she's rather tepid toward, and that's about it. She watches a lot of TV. She's bored and knows it, but has no idea what to do to make her life better.

Then on her way to work, she boards the subway. It's not very crowded. There's a woman in a wedding dress, sobbing. Lisa feels drawn to ask if the woman is okay. They talk. And during this dialogue, in which Lisa is ostensibly consoling the sad bride, she's also learning something about her own life, how to break its relentless ennui, her hopes for the future. What does she learn? How does the bride's story give Lisa strength? How can meeting the bride (a plot point) illuminate something about how Lisa wants to make her life better (characterization)? And will she follow through?

Write the scene on the subway: Lisa and the bride talking, revealing things to each other about their unhappy lives. Let their honesty be startling. Let yourself invade their psyches and reveal their most intimate secrets!

1 page, 2 pages, 4, whatever.  Just have fun and get that imagination kicking!
Happy writing,
Josh

P.S. Please repost or forward this to anyone in your life whose imagination might need a gentle nudge out into the light of day...

P.P.S. Literature can teach us empathy. We need empathy. Our world will end without it.

P.P.P.S. There's a jackhammer outside my window. My stomach is growling.

Free Write: limber your lovely brain

Your imagination wants some exercise. It craves it. Your imagination is wondering what it did to deserve the cold shoulder, the silent treatment. "Hey," it bellows, "remember me! We had some good times! We used to be bosom chums! What did I do to fall from your graces?"

Our creative lives are usually the first to suffer when our "real" lives get too full. We have jobs, and our families (hopefully) are more important than our fictional characters, and suddenly you look around and you haven't written a word in months. But what do we do about this dastardly phenomenon? How can we carve out the space to be creative?

There's no easy answer to that question, of course. But one thing that might help is to find dollops of time, just five minutes here and there for yourself. Take it right now. Before you talk yourself out of it. Before you do something practical with these precious minutes, do something artistic and fun.

Today's scene:

I wonder what will happen with poor old Randy. Wow, he's having a tough go. His wife left him and he got laid off, and he's at a pretty unstable place in life. So guess what Randy does when one of those Silver Men (those guys who paint their bodies, clothing, and skin silver and act like machines on the street for spare change) attempts to make Randy the butt of his performance's joke? Guess how "good spirited" Randy is when the Silver Man mocks him publicly and the maybe 10 or 15 people standing around start to point and laugh at Randy, who's mad as hell and ain't gonna take it no more?

What does Randy do to the Silver Man? Is there a retalliation for feeling publicly mocked? How does he take the angst over the rest of his life and thrust it at the Silver Man, using him as an inappropriate outlet for his rage? And what about the crowd? What's their role in this?

Try writing the whole moment--Randy approaching the Silver Man on the street, their interaction, the aftermath of however you have Randy respond to this unwanted stimuli. And then pepper it with tiny bursts of memory into the specifics of Randy's troubled status quo.

I'm excited to see what you do with this. Send it to me if you feel so inspired. I read all of them.

Happy writing,
Josh

P.S. Please repost or forward this to anyone in your life whose imaginations need a gentle nudge out into the light of day...

P.P.S. I like knowing that you're writing. We need all the beautiful prose we can get.

Free Write: flex your brain

You need to have more fun. Seriously. You need to let your imagination run wild, kick down a door, storm a castle, kill a dragon, kiss the girl, the boy, kiss whomever, whatever. 

Kiss Macgyver?

Our lives are hectic and unruly and unrelenting, but let's make time for our imaginations right now. Take five minutes and do something fun for yourself. Here's today's prompt:

This lady named Ruby has hit the end of her rope with her roommate, Daryl. He's inconsiderate, a slob. He isn't a bad person, per se, just oblivious and self-involved, and it's time for him to hit the bricks. He's also got a wee bit of a temper on him, one that Ruby hasn't yet seen in their domestic interactions. But he's not taking kindly to Ruby's suggestion that he needs to vacate the premisis.

What happens? Why is she finally asking him to leave now? Where does she give him the bad news? Is she scared? How does Daryl react? How does the scene unfurl, unravel?

Write 1 page, 4 pages, 10 pages. Remember to have fun.

Happy writing,
Josh

P.S. Please repost or forward this to anyone in your life whose imaginations are currently in solitary confinement and need a gentle nudge out into the light of day...

P.P.S. Art matters and so do you.

Free Write: engage your beautiful brain

I’ve probably never been to your office. I don’t even know what you do for a living. But I bet you wish you expressed yourself creatively a bit more often. I bet there are days where you actually grieve your imagination like a missing limb—phantom twitches from it, this forgotten vibrant organ. When did life get so serious? When did your job take precedent over the simple pleasure of putting words on a page?

So maybe you should take 5, 10, 20 minutes for yourself today. Nothing serious. Nothing that will get you fired. Steal a small stash of time and write creatively.  I’m going to post writing exercises because our lives are better on days we use our imaginations.

Today’s prompt:

Write a scene in which a man—let’s call him Larry—is riding his bicycle home. He hasn’t had a particularly good day. He’s overtired, frustrated, pent up. He feels unappreciated at work, but he can’t afford to quit. He’s on his bike, and a car cuts him off, nearly hitting him. Everything would be okay if Larry just let it go, put the near miss out of his mind, simply continued to pedal and ignored the driver who cut him off. But he can’t. He’s angered. He’s so angered, in fact, that he takes one hand off the handlebars to give the driver the bird. This is when he loses control of the bike and goes flying, landing in a painful heap. What happens next?

Write the moment from Larry’s point of view, letting a reader experience his mood and his dilemma in an intimate way. It can be 1 page, 2 pages, 4 or 10. Whatever kind of time you have.

Or if you prefer this:

Write an Anger Manifesto: think of the thing that's pissing you off the most right now and do a 5-minute free write venting about it.  Don't line edit or tweak afterward.  Let it exist as a self-contained expression.  Do you feel a bit better with that off your chest?  :)

The most common thing I hear from my writing students is that their lives are so busy that they can’t find the time to write. But we can all spare a few minutes, so give this a try.

Have fun with it! There’s no pressure. Just do something creative. Feel free to send the finished exercise to me or send it to your friends, lovers, whomever. Or keep it for yourself. But you’ll feel better if you exercise your brain a bit. I promise.

Happy writing,
Josh

P.S. Please feel free to repost or forward this to anyone in your life whose imaginations are currently in solitary confinement and need a gentle nudge out into the light of day…