For anyone watching right now that perhaps maybe they’re writing sporadically or maybe
they feel like they want to start getting back to the page, putting out a book, putting
out an essay, starting to write a blog.
If they want to do some type of creative writing exercise, what’s a good prompt that you
would give them to get started?
Well, my favorite prompt is based on a book that was published a long ago by a writer
named Joe Brainard, and the title is I Remember.
The title of the book is I Remember.
And in the book, every single sentence begins with the phrase “I remember.”
And then drop down another sentence, “I remember.”
And then another sentence, “I remember.”
And when I give that exercise at retreats, I look out from where I’m sitting at a sea
of people, and not one of them hesitates.
Those are extremely evocative words.
I mean, try not to finish a sentence that begins with “I remember.”
And so what I suggest to people to do is to just begin -- have a special notebook, begin
with the words “I remember” and write a sentence.
Drop down a line, begin with -- not trying to connect memories.
If you think about the way memory works, it doesn't work in a narrative line.
It doesn't connect.
We don't tell ourselves stories in our heads.
We have these disparate memories that don't connect.
And when we allow them to be associative and to bounce one off the next, it creates all
sorts of interesting material.
People almost invariably find memories that they didn't know that they had, or they make
connections that they didn't know they had.
So it’s a good, it’s a good springing of point.