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March 6, 2023 8:57 AM Subscribe
Bernadette Mayer's Writing Prompts. Hat tip: Bernadette Mayer will give you ideas. Recommended not just for writers.
"Not all of the prompts are as brief as the ones I quoted above. Here’s a longer one that I loved, and which I suspect could be adapted to any type of creative work:
Write the same poem over and over again, in different forms, until you are weary. Another experiment: Set yourself the task of writing for four hours at a time, perhaps once, twice or seven times a week. Don’t stop until hunger and/or fatigue take over. At the very least, always set aside a four-hour period once a month in which to write. This is always possible and will result in one book of poems or prose writing for each year. Then we begin to know something."
Also Give Everybody Everything: The Financial Life of Bernadette Mayer, a podcast about her career and on money and art.
"Not all of the prompts are as brief as the ones I quoted above. Here’s a longer one that I loved, and which I suspect could be adapted to any type of creative work:
Write the same poem over and over again, in different forms, until you are weary. Another experiment: Set yourself the task of writing for four hours at a time, perhaps once, twice or seven times a week. Don’t stop until hunger and/or fatigue take over. At the very least, always set aside a four-hour period once a month in which to write. This is always possible and will result in one book of poems or prose writing for each year. Then we begin to know something."
Also Give Everybody Everything: The Financial Life of Bernadette Mayer, a podcast about her career and on money and art.
Oh goodness. I didn't know she'd passed. She came to my graduate writing program and gave a talk/workshop back in 2004 or 2005, and then I went and did one of her weekend writing workshops at her house some years later. Everyone else dropped out so it was just me and her, and her partner Philip, and their dog, Hector.
She taught me how to make caponata and her typewriter was missing a couple keys -- so she'd just started composing poems without those letters. I ended up writing one of my very favorite (of my own) poems that weekend. She just so completely got me out of my own head for a moment.
It's really hard for me to square the way that someone so incredibly talented could also just be so open and accessible. She really blows away (like a dandelion) the myth that you have to be a big ego jerk to be talented.
posted by heyitsgogi at 10:30 AM on March 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
She taught me how to make caponata and her typewriter was missing a couple keys -- so she'd just started composing poems without those letters. I ended up writing one of my very favorite (of my own) poems that weekend. She just so completely got me out of my own head for a moment.
It's really hard for me to square the way that someone so incredibly talented could also just be so open and accessible. She really blows away (like a dandelion) the myth that you have to be a big ego jerk to be talented.
posted by heyitsgogi at 10:30 AM on March 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
Oh, these are great. I especially like (upon a brief, cursory skim):
* Experiment with writing in every person and tense every day.
* Rewrite someone else's writing. Experiment with theft and plagiarism.
There's such a (justifiable and moral) taboo against copying someone else's work, and yet that can be an excellent way of developing your own skills and voice. (Especially in the visual arts, where copying was actually one of the main methods of instruction for such a long time.) (Sometimes to help myself understand a work of visual art better, I'll try to imagine how I would copy it, how I would paint it - especially with abstract works, it's really interesting to imagine why and how I would paint that particular green line just there, just so.)
But giving yourself permission to play with things THAT NO ONE ELSE IS EVER GOING TO SEE, just for your own edification and practice and absolutely amusement and pleasure is a wonderful thing.
I had not heard of Bernadette Mayer, and I enjoyed the Subtle Maneuvers piece. (Although I don't particularly mind not knowing the famous stuff - there's a LOT I don't know.)
I am delighted to know about this list and I'm really looking forward to exploring it, playing with it. Thank you so much for posting this, storybored!
posted by kristi at 11:17 AM on March 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
* Experiment with writing in every person and tense every day.
* Rewrite someone else's writing. Experiment with theft and plagiarism.
There's such a (justifiable and moral) taboo against copying someone else's work, and yet that can be an excellent way of developing your own skills and voice. (Especially in the visual arts, where copying was actually one of the main methods of instruction for such a long time.) (Sometimes to help myself understand a work of visual art better, I'll try to imagine how I would copy it, how I would paint it - especially with abstract works, it's really interesting to imagine why and how I would paint that particular green line just there, just so.)
But giving yourself permission to play with things THAT NO ONE ELSE IS EVER GOING TO SEE, just for your own edification and practice and absolutely amusement and pleasure is a wonderful thing.
I had not heard of Bernadette Mayer, and I enjoyed the Subtle Maneuvers piece. (Although I don't particularly mind not knowing the famous stuff - there's a LOT I don't know.)
I am delighted to know about this list and I'm really looking forward to exploring it, playing with it. Thank you so much for posting this, storybored!
posted by kristi at 11:17 AM on March 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
You're welcome kristi! I totally agree on copying and rewriting the work of the writers you admire. I think it was Benjamin Franklin who suggested taking a favorite story, reading it a few times and then writing the story out for yourself. Then comparing your work with the original to see how the author does the things that you love.
posted by storybored at 12:26 PM on March 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by storybored at 12:26 PM on March 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
One of my favourite writing exercises, which might well be on this list, is to take letters to advice columnists and rewrite them as if they came from the other side of the issue. It can be an exercise in voice -- does the Mother-In-Law sound different than the Daughter-In-Law who hates her? -- or in omniscience -- what would the other person know about this situation? -- or in reliability -- how do two different people tell the same story in their own self-interest and perspective? Plus, it is fun.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:56 PM on March 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 12:56 PM on March 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
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