{"id":762,"date":"2015-05-10T14:35:06","date_gmt":"2015-05-10T20:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/?p=762"},"modified":"2015-05-10T14:40:47","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T20:10:47","slug":"creativity-all-dried-up-try-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/creativity-all-dried-up-try-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Creativity all dried up? Try this"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/samanthalevang\/14474813623\/\"<\/a>

Gold Dust Day Gecko, by Samantha Levang, used under CC by 2.0<\/a>, cropped from original<\/p><\/div>\n

If ever your brain battery feels dead, this exercise will give you a recharge. I learned it in my Girls Write Now<\/a> mentoring program and tried it out with Winkie Ma, my teenage mentee.<\/p>\n

Start by generating a random list of 5 words. We used a smartphone set to Swype. Squiggle a finger across the keyboard and it\u2019ll pop out a word. We took turns doing this til we had five words. (Half the fun is inventing new swyping patterns and seeing what words you get.) You can also use a website like this one<\/a> to generate your words. Or there\u2019s the pre-digital close-your-eyes-and-stab-a-finger-on-a-dictionary-page technique.<\/p>\n

Now set a timer. You have 5 minutes to write something\u2014anything\u2014that includes all 5 words. To make it harder you can require that the words be used in the order they were generated in (we didn\u2019t).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not good under time pressure so was gratified by how quickly my brain woke up and produced a coherent piece of text for each set of words. And it was probably the most fun of everything we did this year.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s our best set.<\/p>\n

\u00a0earth chap gecko omits kings<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

(I was impressed that Swype knew the word \u201cgecko.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Me:<\/p>\n

As climate change warms the earth, my skin begins to chap under the hot dry sun. Before long, I\u2019ll be as leathery and warty as a gecko. And I won\u2019t be alone. The sun shines on everyone\u2014kings, queens, and commoners. It omits none from its intense, baking attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s dark!<\/em>\u201d Winkie exclaimed when I read it to her. Her own invention was sunnier:<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Lizzy,\u201d the king sighed, slumping into his diamond-encrusted throne. \u201cYou won\u2019t believe the day I\u2019ve had so far.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The king\u2019s gecko glanced back at him, its tongue flickering. The king took this as an invitation to continue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s been so hectic. Nearly the whole declaration had to be omitted because of how vile my writers are. Then, I lost my speech, and the media was not<\/em> impressed. And just now, my subjects burned my robe!\u201d he exclaimed, showing off the burnt edges of the silk. \u201cIt\u2019s just been so long.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lizzy looked back and cocked its head.<\/span><\/p>\n

The king smiled. \u201cLizzy, you\u2019re such a down-to-earth chap. You\u2019re my only true friend here. You know that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The gecko snaked its way to the king\u2019s shoulder, and both of them took a nap in peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

I particularly enjoy the way the same group of words evokes such disparate visions. It reminds me, when I feel stuck in well-worn phrases, that writing is infinite.<\/p>\n

And so, it seems, are the varieties of geckos.<\/p>\n

\"Satanic<\/a>

Satanic Leaf Tailed Gecko (Uroplatus phantasticus), Andasibe, Madagascar, by Frank Vassen, used under CC by 2.0<\/a>, cropped from original<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If ever your brain battery feels dead, this exercise will give you a recharge. I learned it in my Girls Write Now mentoring program and tried it out with Winkie Ma, my teenage mentee. Start by generating a random list of 5 words. We used a smartphone set to Swype. Squiggle a finger across the keyboard and it\u2019ll pop out a word. We took turns doing this til we had five words. (Half the fun is inventing new swyping patterns and seeing what words you get.) You can also use a website like this one to generate your words. Or[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,22],"tags":[127,110,123,122],"class_list":["post-762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity","category-inspiration","tag-creativity","tag-girls-write-now","tag-writing","tag-writing-exercises"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":776,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions\/776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}