10/7/19

Fall Writing Exercise Series #37 Title Mania Plus Crooning 06


The Notebooking Daily Fall Writing Series is a daily writing exercises for both prose writers and poets to keep your creative mind stretched and ready to go—fresh for your other writing endeavors. The writing prompts take the impetus—that initial crystal of creation—out of your hands (for the most part) and changes your writing creation into creative problem solving. Instead of being preoccupied with the question "What do I write" you are instead pondering "How do I make this work?" And in the process you are producing new writing.

These exercises are not meant to be a standard writing session. They are meant to be productive and to keep your brain thinking about using language to solve simple or complex problems. The worst thing you can do is sit there inactive. It's like taking a 5 minute breather in the middle of a spin class—the point is to push, to produce something, however imperfect. If you don't overthink them, you will be able to complete all of the exercises in under 30 minutes.
#37
Title Mania Plus Crooning 06

For today's writing exercise you will write a piece of poetry or prose which uses one of the following as its title. For a bonus challenge use the additional exercise of five random constraints.


Titles:
  1. One Last Dropkick
  2. Wee-Wee-Wee All the Way Home
  3. Turnbuckle 
  4. Before Breakfast 
  5. Like a Parasol Sailing in the Wind

Bonus Exercise: 5 Random Constraints
(I recommend picking any required words or lines before writing with a little surplus for options, but with your chosen title in mind)
  1. Your last sentence must include a list of three items.
  2. You must include at least six words which begin with the letter combination "At".
  3. You must include one sentence (or at least 7 consecutive words) from the wonderful anaphoric poem "I Wake at Four & Drive to the Mountains" by Marcus Myers in Aquifer, the Florida Review's online component.
  4. You must include one sentence that describes a scene including some sort of plastic item that is very out of place.
  5. You must describe something being "like a mouth full of sand" or something very similar.


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If you'd like some background music to write to, try the greatest hits of crooner Paul Anka.