1. Tell about the quality of light coming in through your window. Jump in and write. Don't worry if it is night and your curtains are closed or you would rather write about the light up north- just write. Go for ten minutes, fifteen, a half hour.
2. Begin with "I remember." Write lots of small memories. If you fall into one large memory, write that. Just keep going. Don't be concerned if the memory happened five seconds ago or five years ago. Everything that isn't this moment is memory coming alive again as you write. If you get stuck, just repeat the phrase "I remember" again and keep going.
3. Take something you feel strongly about, whether it is positive or negative, and write about it as though you love it. Go as far as you can, writing as though you love it, then flip over and write about the same things as though you hate it. Then write about it perfectly neutral.
4. Choose a color-for instance, pink- and take a fifteen-minute walk. On your walk notice wherever there is pink. Come back to your notebook and write for fifteen minutes.
5. Write in different places- for example, in a laundromat, and pick up the rhythm of the washing machines. Write at bus stops, in cafes. Write what is going on around you.
6. Give me your morning. Breakfast, waking up, walking to the bus stop. Be as specific as possible. Slow down in your mind and go over the details of the morning.
7. Visualize a place that you really love, be there, see the details. Now write about it. It could be a corner of your bedroom, an old tree you sat under one whole summer, a table at McDonald's in your neighborhood, a place by a river. What colors are there, sounds, smells? When someone else reads it, she should know what it is like to be there. She should feel how you love it, not by your saying you love it, but by your handling of the details.
8. Write about "leaving." Approach it any way you want. Write about your divorce, leaving the house this morning, or a friend dying.
9. What is your first memory?
10. Who are the people you have loved?
11. Write about the streets of your city.
12. Describe a grandparent.
13. Write about:
swimming
the stars
the most frightened you've ever been
green places
how you learned about sex
your first sexual experience
the closest you ever felt to God or nature
reading and books that have changed your life
physical endurance
a teacher you had
Don't be abstract. Write the real stuff. Be honest and detailed.
14. Take a poetry book. Open to any page, grab a line. write it down, and continue from there. A friend calls it, "writing off the page."
15. What kind of animal are you? Do you think you are really a cow, chipmunk, fox, horse underneath?
Start to generate your own writing material and topics. It is good practice.
