Happiness

∀ This Goldfrapp song comes to mind ¶ Prompt from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.   I feel like I wrote something like this before. Basically, this week’s exercise calls for a realignment. No more extreme emotion writing, simply happy. No delusions about grandeur, epic, brooding writing. No to […]

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Being an open channel

∀ Lavender: what would it be like to walk through a field of you? ¶ Prompt from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.   We know already, writing doesn’t come from within — well it does — but it comes from without: without excuses, without ego, without judgment. It flows. […]

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Witness

∀ Katy Perry’s latest album is titled Witness. Here’s a remix and a fan-made video for “Chain to the Rhythm.” ¶ Prompt from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.   “So much of the loneliness of modern life comes because we no longer witness each other,” writes Cameron. “Our lives […]

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Sketching

∀ Art by Khalil Chishtee ¶ Prompt from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.   The time is 7:56. I mark it because this exercise calls for ten minutes of pre-writing writing, a sort of stretch before the real run. The route I’m taking leads to what Cameron calls “simply […]

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Specificity

∀ Photo of Mies Van Der Rohe, the architect who once exclaimed, “God is in the details.” ¶ Prompt from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.   (DISCLAIMER: “This tool is not intended to be high art or serious writing. It is simply an exercise in observation… writing of a […]

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Drama

∀Art from @Equis_SoyBonita ¶ Prompt from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.   Today’s exercise is simple, write a list of one hundred things that you, personally, love. “Set aside one half hour. Settle yourself comfortably. Number from one to a hundred.” And then go. Below is my list. Cameron […]

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Mood

(From Alejandro Jodorowsky’s master work Poesía sin fin, where a group of artists lift their friend up and cheer, “Poeta! Poeta! Poeta!”)   Today’s writing exercise is titled “Mood,” from Julia Cameron’s Right to Write. She asks that you enter a mood, and write in it for ten minutes — […]

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This Writing Life

(Pictured above, Andrei Rublev, who once said, “I am what I am.”)   Two weeks ago I finished the last in a series of essays from the NY Times personal essay prompts, and have since, every day, been mulling over the possibility of continuing this blog through some other means. […]

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A Love Letter

CLICK HERE for PDF of “Between Arabia and India is Georgia” (A Love Letter)   We all have our treasures.   The 12th century Georgian poet, Shota Rustaveli, wrote what became, and to this day still is, the crown jewel of a people’s national literature: a medieval epic romance, about […]

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618. “What Would You Risk Your Life For?”

In response to The New York Times article “650 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing.”   618. “What Would You Risk Your Life For?”   In Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis writes that there are two ways to live: as if every moment were your first, or as if at […]

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609. “How Green Are You?”

(Image from Miniature Photography)   In response to The New York Times article “650 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing.”   613. “How Green Are You?”   Yesterday we lost a plant. His friend the Golden Devil and I mourned with our fingers in the soil. Dolefully we entered a […]

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589. “What’s Your Sunday Routine?”

In response to The New York Times article “650 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing.”   589. “What’s Your Sunday Routine?”   Sundays are holy. Sundays are sacred. Sundays are my favorite days.   Friends call me disciplined. My family talks about my routines. But to me, I just find […]

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526. “Do You Like to Exercise?”

In response to The New York Times article “650 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing.”   526. “Do You Like to Exercise?”   “Yo, bro, can we work in a set with you?”   “Yuh, jus give me a sec.”   We’re in the downtown YMCA stepping down from the […]

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513. “What’s Your Favorite T-Shirt?”

In response to The New York Times article “650 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing.”   513. “What’s Your Favorite T-Shirt?”   Ode to my favorite shirt: “Follow me to EL COSMICO,” it says, and features some Hindu divinities (Vishnu with a pair of Laxmis). They ride an orange and […]

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