Being Enough for Others

Here on NovelMatters we talk a lot about writing prompts, and usually in the context of how we as writers use them to stimulate creativity amongst ourselves. Patti’s post on Wednesday made me think that writing prompts are a way that we can give back to readers.

It’s true as Patti noted that even multi-published authors such as we go through periods in which we believe ourselves to be published only in the past-tense sense of the word, not in the present nor in the foreseeable future.

The gap stretches unimaginably long between the first flirting glance of the idea of the novel in the mind of the writer, and the consummation of that idea with the acceptance by an editor and its implantation in the womb of a contract. And face it, most love affairs with ideas die as virginal as nuns.

But this I have learned: Real writers keep writing. We may stop and sulk and rage and keen with snot running down the sides of our faces. But we love words, and so we keep going.

One way that I’ve been able to keep myself sharp in dry times is to give away my talents. With no thought of building an audience or making a market. I’ve discovered that some of my best audiences, people who are most open and anxious to hear what I have to say about writing, are people who aren’t likely to buy my books. Take people in public senior citizens’ centers, for instance. Or grade school kids.

I believe they—and others—are receptive because everyone has a story, but most people don’t know how to get it out in the open.

I have a standard poetry program that I present to people of all ages (adapting or substituting poems according to the audience.) It’s about what poems are not: Poems don’t have to be rhyming, stanza-structured, long, about noble subjects, flowery, etc.

I present the program with stimulating examples of each. (Poems don’t have to be long: the entire text of “Fleas” is “Adam Had’em.”)

At the end of the program, I produce an elegant container with a lid. I tell the audience that I have brought something mysterious in the container. I am going to release it into the room, and they will write about it, and each one will “see” something different that will become his or her poem. (Once I’ve freed them from the constraints of what they may have thought poetry “had to be,” they feel they can write.)

With a flourish, I remove the lid. People’s eyes light up and they begin to watch things on the screens of their minds. And then they write furiously, or frown, or look away. Not everyone will write. But for those who do, and want to share with the group, the results are wonderful!

Even if you are a beginning writer, there may be audiences in your community who hunger for a speaker who could give them a little inspiration to write, in a non-threatening situation.

Have you done this? Do you use writing prompts with non-writers in this way?

If you haven’t done this, why not give what you know about writing away to people who would be encouraged by it?

Do what Jesus said—give to those who won’t give back to you.

(Oh yeah -- and do it secretly. Guess I blew that.)

Writing Prompts Matter

I was an actor in my former life. My high school years can be summed up in two words: drama geek.

Sharon’s Wednesday post had the sweaty palm feel of a night at the improv—you know, when you jump onto a bare stage, someone yells out a situation, or maybe just a character trait, and then says, “GO!” You start acting your heart out, creating scene, tension, character, and reaction on the fly.

There’s nothing like a creative riff to blow the rust off your brain.

There’s a secret rule to improv, something never mentioned on Drew Carey’s old show ‘What’s My Line’, but it was always practiced. In improv, you never say no.

You don’t resist. You find a way to go with an ever changing, ever evolving moment. If you’re up on stage pretending to fly a kite and another actor comes in and tells you he’s a lion tamer and starts cracking his whip at you, you don’t resist. You don’t turn to that actor and say, “I’m not a lion.”

Instead you embrace the whole thing. Not necessarily by becoming a lion (that seriously limits your range as an actor), but by bending to the lion tamer’s will (not to mention that whip), and reacting to him in a way that allows the kite flying scene to continue, grow, become more than it was.

You go with it.

Writing prompts are the improv of words: permission to let go of our preset ideas and splash in the puddles of our minds. And when we let loose, when we go a-playing for the sheer fun of it, something amazing happens.

We get real honest, real fast.

When we let our mind fly, we’re able to take the fetters off. The real fetters, the real things that hold us back as writers. Truthfully, we’re not really worried, “What will an editor think?” We’re really worried, “What will Grandma think?” It’s the social constraints, family, church, fussy friendships that hold us back from riffing on what we truly think and feel.

Writing prompts help us stuff Granny in the closet and let our true selves free. It’s mentally and emotionally taking our girdles off and scratching. The freedom to explore our true selves, without the constraints of caring what someone else might say or think about what we’ve written.

And that’s why we should all be riffing with writing prompts.

Burn the thing after, if you have to, bury it in the backyard with the bones of Fifi the poodle, but get to that honest place.

If the golden rule is to write what you know, then the governing rule is Writer, know thyself.

 Here are a few more prompts to nudge you to the knowing place. Have fun with them, and, if you’re daring, please share your riff with us in the comments section.

1)   1. A bag lady finds a crying baby in a back alley dumpster.

2)   2.  Write a paragraph about orange.

3)   3. Write a stream of consciousness sentence that begins with the word “noise”. Write down the next word that comes to mind, then the next, and the next. Do not stop to think, just write the words down for three minutes.

4)   4. Describe falling asleep.

The above prompts are original to Bonnie Grove. You are free to share them as you like, just please reference Novel Matters when you do. Thanks!