Hollowdeck Press - Try This

Try This

As part of our continued commitment to supporting your writing practice we will regularly post writing exercises here for you to try. The exercises below were drawn from recent on-line writing class.

1) Lifeline
Do you, or have you ever had a “lifeline”? This could be a person, a practice, even a device. Is your iphone a “lifeline” to your business? Is your best friend a “lifeline” when everything in your life goes wrong? If you prefer to work in memory, then think about what your lifeline was when you were 5, or 15 or 35. Is there a time in your life that you needed one and didn’t have it? If you are working in imagination, choose a character and tell us who or what their lifeline is. If you are looking in the news, think about the 33 miners trapped in the mine in Chile. Their “lifeline” is a 4inch wide tube stretching 700meters below the surface of the ground. Your text can be serious, funny, sad, lighthearted, or anything in between.

2) Prompt: Souvenir
This word usually makes us think of the objects and trinkets we pick up when we visit a destination, someplace new we have never been. Souvenirs can be a reminder of a vacation, adventure or experience that we want to remember. What story or memory arrives when you think of this word? Are there other kinds of souvenirs? Can an idea be a souvenir? Are they always good things or can a souvenir be a troubling thing? Translate this idea in any way you want until it sparks something, either in your memory, observation or imagination.

What is a Prompt? A Prompt is a very small fragment of 1-2 words. It can be a place, a name, an ordinary object, a phrase, a theme or subject; a prompt can be anything. The way to use a prompt in your writing is to look at the word or fragment, close your eyes, and keep them closed until a story, image, memory or first line emerges. Then open your eyes and begin to write. A prompt is an open-ended offering, meant to be translated and used by each of us in our own unique way. You may create a poem, a story, a list, a memory, a fiction, a haiku, a letter, a portrait, anything you like.

3) Left Behind
What’s the first association that arrives when you think of these words? Did you ever leave your credit card in a store? Did you ever leave someone else behind or feel left behind yourself? Do we leave ideas or beliefs or likes/ dislikes behind as we grow up? Are there things or people or places we TRY to leave behind us but fail? Scan your memory and imagination and keep scanning until something sparks.

4) Identity Object
Look around your house, or the room you are in right now, until you find an object that you feel reminds you of your own identity. This could be a practical object, like your driver’s license or a photo of you. But it may be more interesting to keep looking until you find an object that is important to you, something in your house that feels like it holds or confirms or displays who you are. We each surround ourselves with different things, and we identify with different things, so for you this could be anything at all, no matter how sacred or mundane; a coffee cup, a painting, a blanket, a notebook or journal, a cup full of pens, a ratty backpack, even a lamp. (Hemmingway used to say that his whole identity was wrapped up in the torn hunting jacket he had worn for 20years.) When you choose your object, describe it. What does it look like? Where did it come from? How or when do you use it? What does it mean to you or remind you of?

5) Lead Line: “For a moment after waking up,…”
by Simon Van Booy

Complete this sentence one or multiple times. What happens in your life (or in the life of your character/s) for a moment after waking up? You can use this line to write about your life today, or from your memory of a different time in your history.

What is a Lead Line? A Lead Line is an incomplete phrase or fragment of text taken from the work of a famous (or infamous) writer that is meant to be used as a writing exercise. Put the phrase on the top of your page and finish the sentence. What story does that sentence lead you towards? Don't think too much, just respond. If you get stuck, repeat all or part of the phrase and keep going. If you want to work with an intentional constraint, set the egg timer for 15 minutes and write steadily until it goes off. It could spark a memory of your own, or a story you invent, anything goes. Every single thing you read has fragments and lead lines in it. So collect them, write down their author or source, and start using them to leap into your own writing! Lead lines are also great to share with your writing partners. If a lead line captures your curiosity, check out some texts from the author who wrote it.