The Notebooking Daily 2020 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.
Erasing "Out of Season" 3
For poetry do an erasure or black-out poem from the following selection of Ernest Hemingway's 1923 short story "Out of Season". An Erasure/Blackout is really simple: you take the given text and remove many words to make it your own new piece. One way to go about the erasure that I like to do is to copy the text and paste it twice into your document before you start erasing or blacking out (in MS Word set the text background color to black), that way if you get further into the erasure and decide you want a somewhat different tone or direction, it's easy to go to the unaltered version and make the erasure/black-out piece smoother. Another tip is to look for recurring words, in this example 'rod' occurs multiple times and could be a good touchstone for your piece.
If you insist on fiction, write a piece with one of the three titles taken from this section:
- "If You Go to Jail We Might as Well Both Go"
- "Say it to me in Italian"
- "Up the Grassy Bank"
Erasure Selection:
from "Out of Season"
Everybody in the town saw us going through with these rods. We're probably being followed by the game police now. I wish we weren't in on this damn thing. This damned old fool is so drunk, too.
Of course you haven't got the guts to just go back, said the wife. Of course you have to go on.
Why don't you go back? Go on back Tiny.
I'm going to stay with you. If you go to jail we might as well both go.
They turned sharp down the bank and Peduzzi stood his coat blowing in the wind gesturing at the river. It was brown and muddy. Off on the right there was a dump heap.
Say it to me in Italian, said the young gentleman.
Un' mezz'ora. Piu d’un' mezz'ora.
He says it's at least a half hour more. Go on back. Tiny. You're cold in this wind anyway. It's a rotten day and we aren't going to have any fun, anyway.
All right, she said, and climbed up the grassy bank.
Peduzzi was down at the river and did not notice her till she was almost out of sight over the crest. Frau! he shouted. Frau! Fraulein! You're not going? She went on over the crest of the hill.
She's gone! said Peduzzi. It shocked him.
He took off the rubber bands that held the rod segments together and commenced to joint up one of the rods.
But you said it was half an hour further.
Oh, yes. It is good half an hour down. It is good here, too.
Really?
Of course. It is good here and good there too.
The y.g sat down on the bank and jointed up a rod, put on the reel and threaded the line through the guides. He felt uncomfortable and afraid that any minute a gamekeeper or a posse of citizens would come over the bank from the town. He could see the houses of the town and the campanile over the edge of the hill. He opened his leader box. Peduzzi leaned over and dug his flat, hard thumb and forefinger in and tangled the moistened leaders.
Have you some lead?
No.
You must have some lead. Peduzzi was excited. You must have piombo. Piombo. A little piombo. Just here. Just above the hook or your bait will float on the water. You must have it. Just a little piombo.
Have you got some?
No. He looked through his pockets desperately. Sifting through the cloth dirt in the linings of his inside military pockets. I haven't any. We must have piombo.
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