Category Archives: prompt writing

Letter to a Stranger

31 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by in Attention, character, communication, growing up, Observation, prompt writing, Uncategorized

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This was written from the prompt: Write a letter to a stranger. It made me realize I miss this stranger, whom I always saw around Carrboro.

Dear Sir, I love you, and now you are gone, and I didn’t tell you I love you before you disappeared. That’s because when you were here, I did not love you. In fact, you were always annoying to me, but I miss you now, and I think I love you, and I wonder what happened, where you went and can only imagine that you have died.

The way it happened is that one day I noticed you were gone, and realized that I had not seen you for a long time. I don’t know your name, but you, sir, were  a damn good character, and Carrboro, the town we shared, has become so gentrified. There are no good characters here anymore. They can’t afford it. And so I miss you and feel love for who you were.

I miss seeing you in Harris Teeter blowing that one note on your harmonica. It was always one note. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm. It never varied. You never played two notes or a different note. It was like your lips were glued to the one place on the harmonica you always carried and always blew into. You never breathed in, only out, and you walked around Harris Teeter playing your one note. It used to annoy me so badly, but today… today I miss you. Perhaps I’ve grown a little.

I miss your harmonica, but even more than that, I miss your car. It was a big green car, long with a big hood and on the hood you’d glued a huge rag doll in a crucified position, and there was a bumper sticker on the back that said, “Be Patient. God Isn’t Finished With Me Yet,” and on the top, just above the driver’s door was a bunch of bananas. The bananas were always there. They were real bananas too, and they were always fresh and yellow and they weren’t glued down. People would drive up beside you and roll down their windows and point and say, “You have bananas on your car.” And you’d nod and smile and say, “I know.”

You used to run a junk shop out at the county line. It was in an old white house. I stopped in a few times. I even sold you some things. I never bought anything. There was a lot of stuff, inside and outside, and after a time the neighbors complained about your place. They said it was an eyesore, so you lined up barrels along the roadway so they wouldn’t have to see it. They complained about that too, and finally you were forced out and they tore down your house. There’s a Walmart there now, but that’s long after a series of other businesses in a series of other brick buildings. They just couldn’t get that corner right. I wonder if you cursed them.

I think now you knew more that I ever gave you credit for and I’m sorry. If I knew where your grave is, I’d go there, clear the weeds of it, maybe put a jar of wildflowers on it, maybe a harmonica.

I want you to know that I think you wouldn’t annoy me now. I think I’d be happy to see you. I’d love to hear your one-note harmonica in the aisles of Harris Teeter. I’d be happy to see your big green car gliding through the traffic of Carrboro, people staring at the crucified rag doll. I’d love to pull up behind you at a stop light and watch the person in the car next to yours roll his window down, point, and say, “You have bananas on your car.” I’d love to watch you nod and smile and say, “I know.”

Sincerely, Nancy

 

Resistance

13 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by in art, comparison, creating, creativity, Guidance, ideas, Process, prompt writing, ritual, slowing down

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When they say upgrade, go outside and chop some wood.

When they say new and improved, tell them you like the old ways better.

When they say get fit and fabulous, tell them you’re misfit and fabulous.

When they say there’s an app for that, tell them there’s a nap for that.

When they say buy this, ask why?

When they say buy this, ask again.

When they say buy this, make art.

When they say be more of a woman, tell them that’s funny.

When they say you don’t have to be grey, ask if they would dye the heron.

When they say here’s a free sample, tell them you’ve sampled enough.

When they say heart healthy, ask them to define heart.

When they say identity theft, ask whose.

When they say season premier, say, yes, four times a year.

When they say fast food, soak some beans.

When they say consumer confidence, ask in what.

When they say more value, tell them the world needs that.

When they say instant, tell them about cicadas.

When they say but wait there’s more, tell them to be quiet so you can hear it.

 

Written from the prompt, resistance.

The Chase

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in Alchemy of writing, Attention, creating, creativity, ideas, Nancy Peacock, Process, prompt writing, ritual, slowing down, Writer's journey

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Twice a week I teach a prompt writing class. We write to a prompt, provided by me, without editing, thinking, or worrying. The rules are: Let it rip. This past week the prompt was: Running out of something. Here’s what I wrote.

 

This morning, I felt as though I was running out of fresh ideas for prompts. I sat at my desk and looked out the window and said out loud, “I know you’re out there.” The leaves rustled in the breeze showing their white undersides. It felt like a taunt. A tease. “You’re looking too hard,” the leaves said. “You want too much. Your head is too filled.”

I know. I know. I know.

But it doesn’t change the fact that I sometimes feel I am running out of ideas for prompts. And it doesn’t change the fact that I believe there are a million ideas surrounding me that I’m just not capturing. They are like little fairies in the woods. Lithe and free and quick and laughing at the lumbering writer who tries to catch them. They call out, “Here we are. Here we are. Here we are,” and then vanish, a puff of smoke left behind. An idea that could have been mine, but instead remains its own.

I wonder if I shouldn’t go to a mall. Not that there is a store where I can purchase ideas, but that it might help to expose myself to the mass of humanity. Perhaps ideas among people are less illusive. Less playful and teasing. In the mall I might see a mother, harried and stressed, tugging a child behind her like a suitcase – and this might trigger an idea for a prompt, or a story. I might overhear a man tell someone on the other end of his cell phone that he is in a meeting. “Just taking a break,” he adds, realizing his friend might overhear the muzak, the clang of cash registers, the sloosh of Coca-cola descending over a cup of ice.

I might sit in a mall and capture the rhythms of conversation in my notebook. I might find ideas jumping onto the page instead of hiding on the undersides of leaves among the eggs of insects.

The woods are my home. There, a deep peacefulness settles over me. The woods make my mind go cottony like a cloud. Thoughts are less important. They flit through and don’t land. They are like the waterbugs across the surface of the pond. Glittering in the sunlight they skim across the surface before being eaten by turtles and fish. They do no mind being turtle food, or fish food, or eventually fertilizer dropped by a heron lifting off from the branch of a tree. They are afraid of nothing. They are not even afraid to be my ideas, the ones we use for prompts to write about on Friday mornings. But ooh – they do love a chase.

Holding Space for Yourself

16 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in comparison, competition, creating, creativity, emotional safety, Process, prompt writing, ritual, safety, slowing down, Writer's journey

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In teaching, one of the things I try to do is hold space. In my private prompts classes, we close our eyes and take some deep breaths and get quiet, letting the workweek fall away, the effort that went into getting the kids off the school, the traffic we drove through to reach our destination, all the little niggling energy that we carry with us to the next place. My studio, where I teach my private classes, has, over time, taken on a lot of creative energy from my work there, and the work of others. The space supports our creative endeavors, and the work of holding space is made easier by this concentrated energy. But the energy in my public classes is also concentrated, and held collectively.

The class I teach regularly, for free and open to the public is called Prompt Writing. I teach it in a book store, and here I have a different ritual for opening the space. I ask each person to say their name, and give one or two sentences about their writing practice, and in this way we settle into each other.

I then introduce myself and tell the class what we’re going to do, I give the prompt and we write. There are rules for responding to others’ writing when it’s read out loud, and they are rules I believe in, so I try to enforce them gently, but firmly, and consistently. I do not waver from these rules.

The rules are meant to create a safe space for writers. It’s important. This is what is meant by holding space. Holding space is holding safe space, and there are lots of different ways to do it, and lots of different ways to not do it, or to undo it.

Competition is anti-safe-space holding. Overly critical thinking and analyses also. Hierarchy. Self-promotion. Comparison. Trying to fix something for someone, be it their writing or their life. Sometimes asking digging, probing questions can make a person feel challenged and defended instead of heard.

Recently I have been thinking about how powerful this is, and how I might try the same techniques for myself. In other words, when I am feeling low and anxious, perhaps I could recognize that I need something that’s not being provided and try to provide it. I might try to hold space for myself.

I don’t think it would be any different than holding space for others. The first step would be to get quiet, and the second step would be to create a safe environment for myself. One without competition, without over-thinking, without hierarchy, without self-promotion, without comparison, without trying to fix it, without digging at myself. In fact, when I need to hold space for myself, it’s always because I have let these things in. It’s natural that they should creep in. We live in a world of low thoughts. The trick is to see it, and to say no to it, and to open the space for yourself again.