Jun 08 2010
Little Gems of Creative Writing
I discovered a real gem of a creative writing exercise, inspired by Austin Kleon’s newspaper blackout poems. He takes a newspaper and blacks out words with a marker that he doesn’t want, leaving a poem with the remaining words. Now my aim wasn’t really to write poems, I just wanted to get the creative juices flowing.
What I did was pick up a magazine and chose a random article (you can use whatever type of text you like). I would scan the article randomly stringing words together. I didn’t worry about it making sense, or being proper grammar. You don’t want to really think about it, but the words should relate somewhat in the style of a haiku or other type of poem. Again don’t really think about it too much because you will edit and refine it later. You want to go very quickly, and just take stuff off the top of your head. You need to do this to keep your left brain quiet. I did use one rule, and that was that the words had to go in order that they were in the original text. This made sure I would go quickly and kept me from jumping back and forth, which would cause me to think too consciously about what I was doing. I would make about two or three short sentences or phrases. I use the term sentences very loosely. When I was finished, I had a sort of poem, that could be used as is, as a writing prompt, or a subject for my art journal.
The amazing thing was that while I was not consciously trying to make sense, my subconscious was actually creating, and my results actually had several layers of meaning. I then would tweak them just a little and add or remove words, or just edit them briefly to make a little more sense. The main idea was already there. I’ll give you an example:
Somehow years of working had frozen them. Forgetting the meaning. Worn and faded they keep to themselves, while they lose the memories they never make.
This is about forgetting how to live. Forgetting to create, forgetting to pass things on. Losing memories of things you never took the time to experience. Forgetting what is most important and getting lost inside yourself. Also “all work and no play…” From start to finish, this one took me maybe two minutes. When I looked it over I was really surprised that it was this filled with meaning. It was a lot of fun. Try it out and see what you think. You might also want to check out Austin Kleon’s blog at austinkleon.com. Happy Writing!
