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 weekly writing workshops held in Boulder, Colorado.

1. Dedication: Birth and Death
Create a text that is dedicated to someone or something that was born this year (in the past 12 months) or that died this year. You can dedicate your text to a person, famous or not famous, to a group of people, to a place or an idea or a concept, anything you want. What or who died in the last year? What or who was born? Texts can be any genre, any length, any style. You could write a poem for your new nephew who was born in July, or for Compassion in Foreign Policy, that might have died last Fall. You can choose a personal or public topic, but let it be as specific as possible.

2. Object of Protection
What are the objects that protect you? This could be something linear like a seatbelt, airbag or life jacket. Or it could be something more imaginative like a talisman or sacred object that you keep nearby. Or maybe it is a common object that you have invested with protective abilities. What is the object? How did you acquire it? What does it protect you from? What can it NOT protect your from? See if there is a story or a text that emerges from the role this object has played in your life. Texts can be any genre, any style. Remember, you are only making a first draft.