Today I got together with the few people I workshop with on Saturday mornings: Duffy (in his 70’s), Barbara (in her 60’s), Alice (In her 70’s), and Sam (17). We have been exploring “voice,” and in doing so, I presented a series of prompts as warm-ups to get us to a five-minute “free write.” In brief (because I hope you will read through to the end), what follows are the instructions, the prompts, and the writings.

In order to randomize our exercises, we begin with a book. Someone gives me a page number, someone gives me a line number, and someone gives me a word number. From that word we write.

But before beginning the first writing exercise, we chose a word and then took turns doing spontaneous response to the left for several rounds. Then we chose another word and took turns doing  spontaneous response to the right for several rounds. This was warm-up for the following writing exercises.

Instructions for Exercise 1:

From the selected word prompt, write something (a phrase or a word) underneath the word (or phrase) on the paper when it comes to you, then pass the paper to the left. You have ten seconds. Repeat this for two rounds. I (the facilitator) will keep time with a stop watch and I also will write something when the paper comes to me.

Prompt: the word “so”

so here we are again
so the wind caught
in winter it’s nice to think warm
so goes my pure heart
and so they said it will
never work
but you love to follow
happy thoughts are best
so back to us, broken
and some way back

 

Comments: We liked the piece and were able to create stories around it. Then we tried reading it backwards:

 

and some way back
so back to us, broken
happy thoughts are best
but you love to follow
never work
and so they said it will
so goes my pure heart
in winter it’s nice to think warm
so the wind caught
so here we are again

 

Comments: We really liked this version. It suggested lots of images and story … and it seemed to be more satisfying.

 

Instruction for Exercise 2: Same as Exercise 1 except this time the paper will be passed to the right instead of the left.

 

Prompt: the article “a”

 

a lovely broken body
one bright day
the moonlight
how will I go on?
blue he said, blue
yes, please say yes
who had this idea
the sunset over the water
why am I so polarized?
legs

 

Comments: Again we liked this writing. It had lots of images and story ideas, and we found that it pulled us in. Then we tried reading it backwards:

 

legs
why am I so polarized?
the sunset over the water
who had this idea
yes, please say yes
blue, he said, blue
how will I go on?
the moonlight
one bright day
a lovely broken body

 

Comments: We liked this much more. It reminded me of an Appalachian murder ballad. It’s like notes from a good experience gone bad … this exercise or poem conjures up lots of images. We felt it was much more satisfying than the other version.

 

Instructions for Exercise 3:

 

Combine Exercises 1 and 2. Two random words were chosen. Each word was written at the top of a page. I handed the two pages (face-down) to the persons on my left and on my right. I gave them two seconds to turn the paper over and look at the word. Then, each person had ten seconds to write something under the phrase that was last written. So … we had two papers going in different directions for two rounds.

 

Prompt for the paper going to the left was the word “break.”

 

break
big mamma
yes
dog
yikes
go for it
life is easy
life is such a lovesick pill
sandy beach

 

(With everyone more tense with two pages coming round from two different directions, everyone wrote less. The person to my left could not read the word break I had written on the page, so his big mamma was totally random).

 

Backwards

 

sandy beach
life is such a lovesick pill
life is easy
go for it
dog
yes
big mamma
break

 

Again, we found some entertainment in the piece as it was written (down the page), but found the piece to be much more fulfilling when it was read backwards. Everyone laughed at the same time.

 

Prompt for the paper going to the right was the word “the.”

 

the beginning of us
fragile thoughts
the dog was barking
what is in the grass
blue
what is the end
who is knocking
into the darkness of night
white lipstick
red

 

… and backwards:

 

red
white lipstick
into the darkness of night
who is knocking
what is the end
blue
what is in the grass
the dog was barking
fragile thoughts
the beginning of us

 

This backwards reading of this writing was very satisfying. It suggested a love story? It used real detail but the fragmentation of the ideas made for large holes in the “story” where much could be interpreted.

 

IN CONCLUSION:

 

These exercises took about 30 minutes to complete. With so little time (ten seconds) there was not much time to think about what to write that would follow what the previous writer had written. I found three distinct approaches for my contributions to the piece as it came around:

1. “I don’t want to be stuck not coming up with something, so I’m going to write down __________ when the page comes around (premeditated word or phrase to save face).
2. “I’m going to try and read the last phrase written on the page before I write something … so that there is maybe more cohesiveness.”
3. “I’m going to look at the phrase, but I’m going to be spontaneous also.”

 

I asked the other writers in the group and they concurred that this was what they experienced as well: vacillating between the three approaches as the pages went round.

 

Also, we could pretty much tell who had written each phrase because we know each other well enough to know each other’s palates. In fact, we discussed how—with only ten seconds, we each defaulted to our instinctual center (or base). An example (using a painting metaphor) would be: If you preferred to paint with blue, white, and tan; but you were trying to branch out to other colors and experiment, you might have a broad palate that had more color, was more diverse, but lacked individuality. Whereas, if you were under stress (energized) you would probably default to your original palate of blue, white, and tan. This became a discussion on how voice can possibly be realized when we are energized and driving our writing with our default practices (methods). I was reminded of Kerouac’s comments on spontaneous prose you can access here:  http://www.openculture.com/2013/10/jack-kerouac-explains-the-nine-essentials-of-writing-spontaneous-prose.html.

 

The writing exercises (as stated before) were warm-ups for the five minute free-write we did after these exercises. During the five minute free-write, we were all writing furiously. After lunch we read what we had written in the five minute free-writes and discussed them. We felt that what we wrote in the five minute free-write benefited from our having done all the exercise beforehand.

 

In other words, “we felt that the warm-ups worked–that they loosened our minds and made our writing more fluid than it would have been had we not participated in the exercises.”

 

We also preferred each piece better when it was read backwards (from bottom to top).  I would love to hear some other opinions on that.

Poems (writings) © Warren Weaver, Barbara Weaver, Sam Davenport, Alice Adkins, and Bobby Taylor

blog post © 2015 bobby taylor