10/13/19

Fall Writing Exercise Series #43 Title Mania Plus Combat 07

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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.
#43
Title Mania Plus Combat 07

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. The Last Croquet Wick
  2. Two-Week Furlough 
  3. Open Aperture 
  4. To the Homeless Man Quietly Eating BBQ-ed Pigeon over the Garbage Can Fire at 4:15am
  5. Fight or Flight

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 second paragraph must be a single sentence of no more than three words.
  2. You must include at least six words which begin with the letter combination "Cl".
  3. You must include one sentence (or at least 5 consecutive words) from the bipedal poem “How Do I Know When I’ve Suffered Enough?” by Ace Boggess in Notre Dame Review's online component.
  4. You must include one sentence that has five words that end with either a hard t or hard k sound.
  5. You must describe the smell of at least 2 things.


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If you'd like some background music to write to, try the 1994 release of France's most famous emcee "Prose Combat" by MC Solaar.