Category Archives: prompt writing

Getting unstuck with STUCK

31 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in playwriting, Process, prompt writing, Tamara Kissane, Writing Advice

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What do you do when you feel stuck as a writer?

Below you’ll see some writing tricks that have worked for me when I can’t seem to make any headway or even get started.

What has worked for you?

Writing tricks for getting unstuck:

  1. Write with a timer. Just 5 minutes of committed writing time might get you in the flow enough that you want to continue beyond the timer going off. Just getting started can help you build momentum.
  2. Write knowing that you have the option to throw it all away and never show your writing to anyone else (you don’t even need to show it to yourself again!). Take the pressure off and just let those words flow without expectation.
  3. Pull inspiration from another author. Grab a book from your bookshelf and choose a piece of random text as a jumping off point. See David Menconi’s suggestion to jumpstart your writing here.
  4. Find an accountability partner or writing group. In these stay-at-home days, you might still reach out to friends to talk thru your story ideas and to gather the encouragement you need. Writing can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. 🙂
  5. ‘Go visual, aural, or physical’ — clip photos from a magazine, listen to music, or move your body for inspiration.
  6. Take a break. Come back to it tomorrow or another time when you feel your well has filled again. It’s ok to dream about your work away from the page. It’s ok to take a break and percolate for a bit.
  7. Construct boundaries or a list of required ingredients for yourself. Occasionally creating some restrictions around our work can help to free us up.
  8. Write for another medium or genre. If you are a playwright, try writing for audio or for video. If you write dramas, try your hand at comedy. An occasional switch up can be inspiring!
  9. Give yourself a deadline. I love a deadline as motivation, even if I’m the one setting it for myself!

Do any of those resonate with you?

Those tricks in practice:

This month, I’m feeling really grateful that the STUCK MONOLOGUES from PlayMakers Repertory Company allowed me to call on almost all of the items from the list above in order to get my contribution completed on time. 🙂

In particular, I want to point out #7 (list of required ingredients) and #8 (writing for another medium) from the list above.

As you’ll see below, the playwrights for the STUCK MONOLOGUE project were asked to adhere to a recipe of three ingredients when writing our short monologues. Those items gave my writing focus while still feeling expansive enough that I could follow my own voice. I was able to write more quickly than usual, and wow, during this time of corona-distraction and molasses-creativity, it was a balm to finish something.

And, as you’ll see/hear, each playwright developed a unique piece based on the same ingredients. So thrilling.

As a playwright who writes for the stage and for audio, it was also a fun challenge to write a short piece for pre-recorded video and to consider ways to use that visual element to tell the story. Check out LEVERAGING MR. BUMBLE and see if I succeeded.

Speaking of…

Have you watched the STUCK MONOLOGUES from PlayMakers Repertory? 

Hop on over and enjoy all of them. If you have a moment, please let the staff at PlayMakers know if you are eager for more of this type of project – I know they’d love to have that feedback and support.

Released over the course of July, these short monologues were written by local playwrights including: Jacqueline E. Lawton, Julia Gibson, Lynden Harris, Tamara Kissane (me!), Alejandro Rodriguez, Madeline Sunshine, Mark Perry, Michael Perlman, Khalil LeSaldo, and Mike Wiley.

Here’s the description from the PlayMakers site: 

As early quarantine days had us feeling “stuck,” we called upon some of our favorite local playwrights to turn that feeling into art. Then members of your favorite acting company, past and present, worked their magic in bringing those monologues to life.

We gave our playwright friends a “recipe” to turn our common moment of being stuck into something creative:

  • It must have at least one local reference
  • It must contain at least one joke.
  • It must fit well under the title of “stuck.”

An image from my piece performed by Gwendolyn Schwinke

Go directly to LEVERAGING MR. BUMBLE on YouTube here.

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A couple more things….

#1: I was on the radio on July 24 to have a quick chat with Dr. B on WHUP (a local radio channel). We talked about Piedmont Laureate-ing, audio dramas, writing, and the pandemic. (Listen here starting at the 25 min mark.)

#2: The Durham Arts Council is delighted to be partnering with Alamance Arts, Orange County Arts Commission and Person County Arts Council to offer the new Artist Support Grant.  The grant program is funded by the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources, with additional funding from the Durham Arts Council and the partner counties.  The Artist Support Grant was created to provide direct support to individual artists during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative will fund professional and artistic development for emerging and established artists to enhance their skills and abilities to create work or to improve their business operations and capacity to bring their work to new audiences.

Eligible artist applicants: have lived in Durham, Orange, Person or Alamance Counties (NC) for at least one year, are at least 18 and are not enrolled in a degree program in their art form.  Projects in performing, visual, literary, traditional and media arts are eligible. Grants will range from $500-$1,500.

Information sessions are currently scheduled for 6PM on August 6 (co-hosted with Alamance Arts) and August 11 on Zoom. Email Margaret DeMott to register.

Guidelines and scheduled information sessions can be found here.

Applications are due on September 14.  Questions?  Email Margaret DeMott.

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Thanks and happy writing,

Tamara

There’s a prompt on your bookshelf!

22 Friday May 2020

Posted by in continuing, creating, David Menconi, prompt writing, Tamara Kissane, Writing Advice

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I’m excited to share this writing prompt from David Menconi, the wonderful 2019 Piedmont Laureate.

Near the end of March, I reached out to a handful of experts to request a quick tip or exercise for people who are writing at home.

[Speaking of writers, here’s a suggestion: Dig into the PL blog archives to read the generous and useful posts written by Piedmont Laureates in previous years. You won’t be disappointed.]

It’s taken me nearly a month to circle back around to sharing what I received, but I’m happy to say that a good writing tip rarely goes out of style.

If you are feeling the itch to write, AND you are also feeling blocked, then the tip below from David Menconi might be just the rocket booster you need.

This is an extraordinarily silly exercise, but it has actually worked for me as a sort of mental reboot.

If you’re stuck on a piece of writing, especially how to begin something, put it aside, go to the bookshelf, randomly select a book, randomly point to a sentence & type it.

I did this just now & the book is Lewis Shiner’s very fine 1993 novel “Glimpses.” From page 177:“Does this have anything to do with that Beach Boys tape you played me last night?”

Put aside the book, treat that as the first sentence of something & just keep typing/writing for a while. Don’t worry about how good/bad it is or even think too much about it. I have found that it’s a good idea to stop before writing myself into a corner.

After that, go back to your main task & you might find it possible to burp something onto the page that you can at least start working with.

David Menconi, PL ’19

Read two recent articles of David’s for Come Hear North Carolina: a celebration of our state’s music

A NEW VISION OF THE MUSIC BUSINESS IN THE ERA OF CORONAVIRUS

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BRINGS UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGES TO THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

019 Piedmont Laureate David Menconi covered music for the (Raleigh) News & Observer for 28 years. His book “Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk” will be published this fall by the University of North Carolina Press.

End of Year

31 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in Alchemy of writing, art, Attention, confidence, continuing, creating, Guidance, heart, prompt writing, Publication, sponsors, Story, teachers, Uncategorized, Working

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December 31st – and my year as Piedmont Laureate comes to a close. When I accepted the honor of serving as laureate for three counties, I felt uncertain whether or not I’d be able to keep up my writing this year. I’d heard from one emeritus that I shouldn’t expect to, that it might be best if I just focused on my laureateship and let the writing rest.

I believe in letting writing rest. I believe it’s beneficial to back away from it at times, and do other things. But I also believe that there is an ebb and flow to the work of writing, and that a writer knows when she should back away and when she shouldn’t. I was in a critical place where I shouldn’t back away. I needed to keep steadily working on the novel I was writing. I’d backed away from it enough. I’d stabbed at it and stabbed at it, like an unskilled spear fisherman, until finally I knew that what I needed to catch that glimmering plot just below the surface was a net, and that the net was simply work. I needed to show up and push through.

For the past year there have been two charts pinned to the wall above my desk. One is a timeline for the novel, spanning 1876 to 1896. It’s divided into three columns, one for each of two main characters and one for national events. The other chart pinned to my wall is the schedule I kept as Piedmont Laureate, divided into months. Scribbled into each month’s space were the events I was attending, and the readings and workshops I was giving. It’s been a busy year!

I’m proud of my work as Piedmont Laureate, and especially proud of the workshops I gave: “Costume Writing Parties” in which we used vintage clothing to explore character development, “Character Emotions” in which I presented thoughts and exercises on creating character emotions that live and breathe and don’t fall flat (sad!) on the page, “Postcards from the Edge of Fiction” in which we wrote using vintage postcards as prompts to explore story possibilities. I also held conversations with writers in each county: Our Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green on the importance of historical fiction, Lee Smith on the subject of mentoring, Nora Gaskin on the subjects of traditional and indy publishing and a panel discussion on The Effects of Social Media on Creativity with Anna Jean Mayhew, Ralph Hardy, Kim Church, Michelle Berger and Charles Fiore. It was lively and wonderful and we all came away thinking we should do this again. There’s so much to say. So much to explore.

And that’s the bottom line here I think. There is so much to explore. There’s so much to explore in talking with other writers, in meeting people, in writing with people, in traveling, and in my own (or your own) writing.

I am almost finished with this novel, almost ready to hand it off to readers and get some opinions. I may have completely failed at getting the story on the page, and honestly, that’s always a possibility for any writer, accomplished or not. We meet the story as dumb scribes. We know nothing until we go on the journey, and sometimes, after the journey is complete, we still know nothing except that we know we are changed. We have gone through something and the we feel differently for it.

Even if the writing fails in terms of publishing (and I have a few books and a lot of shorter work in my closet) it changes me. It shapes me. Writing shapes me as much as I shape it. I’m proud I kept on working on this novel during my laureateship. Accolades are important, but nothing, not even success, should get in the way of writing.

I send big love to all my supporters and friends I met along the way. I thank you for attending workshops and events. I thank the sponsors of the Piedmont Laureate program: City of Raleigh Arts Commission, Durham Arts Council, Orange County Arts Commission and United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County. One thing I learned this year is how hard people employed in arts organizations work for the good of artists. I don’t envy them their jobs. Herding artists must some times feel like herding cats. We are an independent bunch. Most of us have worked outside of the norm for a very long time. Recognition from organizations like these feels important. It feels good. For me it felt like a gift to be celebrated and trusted this way.

I want to close the year by inviting you to please come to one of my free workshops held at Flyleaf Books the second Saturday of each month, 10 to 12. Even people who do not identify as writers come to these workshops. They are, in the words of one attendant, “a buzz.” I’ve been holding these free workshops for 15 years. Fifteen years! Another milestone that passed this year. I started the workshops in Borders Bookstore, and when it closed I kept it going by moving around to libraries. When Flyleaf Books opened, we found a home and I am grateful for such a strong independent bookstore.

I’ve met so many people over the years, and heard so many stories. Sometimes I feel like a story goddess. I give a prompt and people give me a story. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to know that I helped to launch a story into the world – be it my own or yours.

I said it when I accepted the honor of serving as Piedmont Laureate, and I will say it until I die. Stories are how we meet each other. Stories are where we live. Stories are what makes us human, and what gives us our humanity, compassion and empathy, three qualities I believe we all need to cultivate as much as possible.

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.