Would-a, Should-a, Could-a
It’s impossible to change the past with the force of your imagination, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try.
Apples!
You can find apples on trees, on the ground, in your fridge. They can be in pies, vinegar, stories and popular expressions.
Slow Changes
From the atoms of our bodies to the earth under our feet and black holes in distant space, nothing stays the same.
Acts of Kindness
Often kindness comes unbidden. It can also arrive in the form of an uncomplicated yes when you ask for help.
Surprise yourself!
How do you surprise yourself? You simply do something that you didn’t know you were going to do until you did it.
Second thoughts
You do this by saying the first thought out loud. Yes, out loud, with your voice and lips. Then write what comes to mind next.
Combinations
Any old thought. About the past, present, or future. About wisdom or bad advice. About nuclear physics or sculpture. No pressure to be profound.
Alphabet Salad
Don’t burden yourself with a requirement to “make sense.” Let the words roll out and see what kind of word salad they make.
A Talking Object
If you write from the point of view of an object, will it brag or complain? Will it sound like a child or a space alien?
How to Make a Fort
Begin with the word “Well…” That signals that you are coming up with any old idea without committing that it will be a good one.
You Know Where
Everybody’s got to be somewhere. So does everything. Everything that happens, happens somewhere.
Ah, Chores
If you kept a chore score, what chore would you have done most in your life?
Arriving Home
“Arriving home” can be a moment or a process. It can involve stepping through a doorway, of course
Summer’s Moment
One minute you are going about your business, doing the next task at hand, then suddenly the awareness hits…. It’s summer!
Questions Upon Questions
When you start with “What if…” a zillion (or two) questions should come to mind.
Where’s the Fire?
Some fires turn things to smoke and soot. Others issue warnings or bring change.
Round
You can hold a round ball in your hand, but how do you know that the earth is round?
A Story of a Shoe (or Two)
Some shoes–traveling shoes, crying shoes, big-girl shoes are metaphorical and real at the same time.
Starting With a Tree
Consider trees. Their biology and mythology. Their leaves and needles, fruits and shade. All the things that can be made from them.
What Would Rumpelstiltskin Do?
Do you have a metaphorical pile of straw that you wish Rumpelstiltskin would spin into gold.
Where is the Air?
Without air, much of the world-as-we-know-it wouldn’t function: candles, car engines, bullhorns, vacuum cleaners.
Lots and Lots
A new thing becomes abundant and something else fades away. This the process we call change.
Got Numbers?
Are there numbers you like and dislike? What can you do with a lucky number?
Mind and Body
Everybody has a mind. Everybody has a body. Is there a line between the two?
When the Pandemic is Over
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. What does it shine on for you?
For the Love of Gloves
When is a glove not a glove? Think of mittens or fingerless gloves. Or whatever you do when you need a glove and can’t find one.
Pause and Relax
Can you write and be relaxed at the same time? What changes when you try?
From Squiggles to Faces
Fiddle around, making squiggles upon squiggles, until some faces start to emerge.
What’s Easy
People have different learning styles, preferences and experience. What’s easy for you?
At Least Four Letters
What happens to the English language if you skip all the words that are less than four letters long?
Shadows
Shadows have shapes and colors. If there is light, there will be shadows.
A Story From Your Life
The stories in your life can be big, little, exciting or dull. They might center on places, people or events.
Well-made Things
Objects that are so well-made you barely notice you are using them. Art that affects you.
Landscapes of Life
Our lives don’t run straight. They wander through landscapes of possibility and surprise.
Day By Day
Thinking about what changes over a 48-hour period can help you examine it more closely and notice the nuances.
Randomly Reminding
An exercise that helps you disorganize your thoughts, and connect them to something new.
Drawing, Doodling and Writing
An opportunity to observe what drawing, doodling, and writing have in common.
‘Tis the Season
Seasonal cycles can be minutes, days, months or even years long. Laundry season. Snow-shoveling season. Global pandemic season.
Fun With Truth and Lies
Begin with facts. Observations about your surroundings that any other person would agree with.
The Bigger Picture
You can zoom out in space, or in time. You can even zoom into realms of greater understanding.
Hot (Not) To Do Something
Instead of explaining what to do, explain what not to do.
Ah, Plans…
What are your immediate plans? Your newest plans? Your post-pandemic plans? Do you have a plan not to plan?
Choosing and Choosing
Even if we make the same choice every time, it’s still a choice.
Significant Vegetables
Anything that isn’t from an animal or a mineral counts as a vegetable–green beans, wooden tables, cotton shirts.
There’s Always Water Somewhere
If you are alive and on this planet, there is water nearby. In your body. In plants and animals. In underground lakes and rivers. In the sky.
Sweet Relief!
Sometimes you are all but certain disaster is going to strike–and then it doesn’t. Ah, sweet relief.
A Turning Point, Alphabetically
You might notice a turning point as you pass through it, or only come to understand it in retrospect.
Things You Trust
What are some of the things that you trust? (Things, not people or animals. Maybe not even plants.) Think of trust as a form of expectation. Expectations that you know will be met. Is there a fence that you trust? A tool? Furniture? Explain how you reliably expect this object to perform and how that […]
Mysterious Eating
It’s possible to provide many details about a person, a place or a time and still make it impossible to identify them.
Where There’s a Chair
A chair you have known. One you have forgotten. A chair that isn’t a chair at all.
Bubbles of Your Bubble
Each of us lives at the center of our very own universe. We explore it with our awareness. Can you be aware of your awareness?
Small, Medium, Large
The present. What your senses take in. Physical and emotional states. The contents of your mind and imagination.
In One Place
Drain your mind until it’s empty then write about whatever plant, animal, or thing pops back in first.
At Three
Who comes and goes–in person and electronically? Do your energy and attitude morph throughout the day?
How Do You Beat the Heat?
What heats you up? The weather? Anxiety? A responsibility you wish you didn’t have? What do you do about it?
Oh the Difficulties!
If you have a relationship with an immovable object, you are the one who does all the work.
New Season Ahead!
Hopes and plans, clothes and shoes, tools and accessories, people and activities. What’s coming up this summer?
A Letter from the Grand Hotel
Imagine that you are staying in a splendid vacation spot. Someplace with the best amenities and services.
Listen!
While you draw, listen. To anything you choose: music, the news, another person, an audiobook, or ambient sounds.
What It’s Not
To write about what something is not, you must find a way to think of two things at once.
Temporary and Permanent
What’s temporary in your life? What’s more-or-less permanent?
Inanimate Pals
What are the qualities of that special kind of friendship that would make you call someone your pal?
People and Places
We swim and rivers of people. Everybody has to be somewhere. Think about the names of the people and places you have known.
What’s Open?
There are open letters, open minds, open houses and open seating. You can open a present, an app, a spigot or a conversation.
What’s New?
It’s easy to forget that every day and every moment are new, whether there’s an incurable virus raging about or not.
Oh! The Things That Grow!
Look around for growing things, in nature, in your house, in your mind.
Start With Squiggles
Even when your page seems completely random or utterly lackluster, your mind will keep working on it. Even when you are asleep.
What You Miss
You own your happy memories. Now is a good time to make use of them.
Not A Virus
Use your pen to show your mind that your personal universe is much larger than this bad situation. Remember that an atom is comprised mostly of empty space.
Don’t Run Out!
Behind all of the toilet paper jokes and the images of empty shelves in stores is the reality that everyone has things that they don’t want to run out of.
Opposite and Opposite
Resist the idea that you are supposed to “make sense.” Focus on the possibilities of opposite-words and listen to the sentences that pop into your mind.
So Many Opinions
Your opinions belong to you. Write whatever you want about them. Start small–with your immediate surroundings or the events of the day so far.
Can’t. Because…
Nobody can do everything. There are zillions of things you can’t do, whether you want to do them or not.
Heart of the Matter
You are going to be writing on the lines of the spiral, so as the spiral grows, keep the lines at a distance from one another that will be good for writing on.
Right Before
You’ve done all sorts of things right lately, but since they don’t need your attention anymore, you’ve forgotten a fair number of them.
Easy Go
What have you dropped, tossed, or put away? What have you forgotten? When letting go is easy, you don’t even notice yourself doing it.
Winter Confidence
Shoveling snow, walking on ice, thawing frozen pipes, scraping off a car, and dressing for the cold aren’t known for their universal appeal.
Oh the Gifts!
Imagine yourself with the wealth and power to bestow any kind of gift on anyone or anything.
The Long and the Short of It
Whether something is long or short depends on the context and on a person’s perspective.
Skip Into the New Year
When will you close your eyes, cover your ears, or plug your nose? What will you turn away from? What foods will you leave on the plate?
What Lights Your Way?
We can speak of light both literally and figuratively. Light is what eliminates the problems that darkness creates.
Month by Month
Sometimes you can trick unexpected insights from your mind by mapping your disorderly memory onto an orderly calendar.
Just Jars
Jars of affection. Jars of time. Jars of forgotten events. What would you like to put in a jar to preserve until a later date?
A List, Plus …
What words evoke what you see, hear, taste, smell and feel on your skin? Make a list that runs the length of the page.
Yucky Food
Have you ever eaten the foods that you dislike? What is the origin of your revulsion? How do you react when you watch others eat it?
How do you react?
False and True
Write the sentences in any order. You can begin with a true statement or a false one.
The Shapes
Concentrate on the shapes that you see in front of you. Rather than naming the things that you see, name their shapes: triangle, rectangle, circle, oval, blob.
A Tale of a Table
They are everywhere–in houses and restaurants, on sidewalks and in parks, at work. You also have tables in your memory and in your imagination.
Wondering Where
Use the phrase “I wonder where…” to begin the first sentence that you write. When you don’t know where something is, maybe it is lost. Maybe you don’t even expect to see it again. You can wonder where a person is, too. You can wonder about a place where something will happen in the future. A person […]
For Example
Before you start writing, set up your page. Draw a line where the title will go and mark off some space for illustration. Then collect a half-dozen or so good words. A word is a good one when it jumps out at you for some reason. Maybe you think the spelling is odd. Maybe it reminds […]
Your Ground
One can break, give, or stand ground. Something can be ground in, ground out, or run into the ground. There are groundswells, ground rules, and shifting grounds.
Hats Everywhere
On your head, in your pocket, under the couch. On someone else’s head, or in their pocket. Hats are everywhere.
The Furniture
Tables and couches are certainly furniture. Are curtains, counters, and closets furniture? What about a bathtub?
Where There Are People
You can go on a field trip in your imagination. Do this by traveling in memory. Or do this by making things up.
When the Rain Comes
What happens in the natural world when rain begins to fall after a period of drought? How does the built world change when rainwater pours over it once again?
Pick It Up and Put It Down
Some things, such as the flu or an ear-worm tune, can be picked up, but you can’t put them back down.
Escalating Troubles
Imagine a character who has one bad or disappointing thing after another happen to them.
In One Month
Technically, it will be summer for another month, but the slow glide into the fall season has already begun.
Exciting Introductions
Adopt the voice of an emcee, the one who stands up on stage and gets the audience excited about what is to come.
Letters Looming Large
The only requirement is that when you arrive at one of the ornate letters, you must use that letter in what you are writing.
An Alphabet of Opposites
…An observation about the process of filling the columns. A thought that passed through your mind as you were writing down words. Whatever pops into your head and fits into the tiny space allowed…
Invent Something
Your invention needn’t be constrained by gravity, the speed of light, or the rules of logic.
So Many Coats
A person can wear an imaginary coat that has imaginary powers, such as a coat of confidence, reverence, or pride.
Ahead and Behind
When your mind is pleasantly wandering, are your more likely to daydream about your bucket list or dwell on your many accomplishments?