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

 

 

 

 

 

Lyrical Life Themes

What themes continue to show up in your writing?  What are you here to say? Or perhaps “work through?”  Read Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy and you will see how Cohen, through writing poetic prose, was working with ideas that he distilled into his iconic song, “Hallelujah.” Read some of Paul McCartney’s poetry and you will experience the melancholy and playful abandon found in “Eleanor Rigby,” and “Yellow Submarine.” Bobby Taylor leads an investigation into works by Paul McCartney, Jim Morrison, Patti Smith, Jimmy Buffett, Alicia Keyes, Tom Waits and other popular hit songwriters who have published prose and/or poetry in addition to their hits. These brief studies are intended to stimulate introspection and to provoke new works to be shared in the workshop environment. Previous workshop attendees found this approach to be transformative. The workshop is 95 dollars for 7 weeks to begin meeting on August 29^th at 1 pm. Each of the meetings will be 90 minutes long.

The Works Between The Works

You have written a song, poem, or story that you feel is special. Perhaps it articulates a moment of great fulfillment or great loss. What about the song (poem or story) about what life was like five years before that? Or ten years after? What about the works between the works? In 1965 Joseph Campbell saw publication of his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces in which he identified twelve steps of the hero’s journey. His work was so profound that it became the blueprint for organizing stories like “Star Wars,” “Titanic,” and countless other blockbuster hits. Using Campbell’s hero’s journey Bobby Taylor leads a seven-week workshop in which participants will be asked to write a series of works that function to tell a larger story. The workshop is 95 dollars for 7 weeks to begin meeting on August 29^th at 2:30 pm. Each of the meetings will be 90 minutes long.

Whenever I sit down to write a song with a young, new songwriter, one who has the youth and vitality to live, breath, and sleep the troubadour’s life (I’ve long given up on racing the moon for thrills), I start with the belief that the person sitting in front of me has something to say and a way of saying it that is unlike anyone else. I believe that that person has the chords, the melodies, the stories, the rhythms, and the personality to charm millions of people into buying their album so that it can be listened to over and over again.

I envision the artist having a long career and closing their show out every night with the song we are getting ready to write.

It then becomes my job to create a space where that song can be farmed—or “harvested” according to how well our collaboration goes. If I can gain their trust and their confidence, if I can coax out of them what is unique and universal, then the song we create will begin to open doors that were previously closed.

Yes, we stand to make money, earn awards, and meet our heroes. Yes, we stand to blow a few people away at the Bluebird or in the little rooms all over town where devoted song people never give up on finding that next great song that will make everything make sense again. And, we also stand to gain a new understanding of life—we stand to learn about the human condition by looking through each other’s eyes for a while. Maybe I will see something in a new way. Maybe he (or she) will learn something that will save them precious time in their race for the top.

And maybe, there, in the space that opens up in the room, in the energy that brings acceptance and understanding, we will know (no maybe about it), we will KNOW that we arrived at timelessness—that we have come all of this way, down so many roads, and met at our appointed time to sit for a while in Music City Zen.

What do Leonard Cohen, Janis Ian, Tupac Shakur, Patti Smith, Ryan Adams, Jim Morrison, Rod McKuean, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon have in common? Aside from writing hit songs, they each wrote poetry and/or prose. Why does that matter? Perhaps by looking at hit songwriter’s songs in addition to their other written works we can isolate their creative spark and use that as a mirror to help us see our own creative spark–what drives us–what troubles us–what we are trying to say.