I enjoy giving my students process-based exercises because I like doing them myself.
Here’s a version of one I gave my students at Sarah Lawrence recently that I suggest you try:
“Keep a stack of index cards handy and write paragraphs on a loose theme in different locations, conditions, and at different times of day throughout the week, with an emphasis on times of day and places where you wouldn’t ordinarily write. If you’re having trouble coming up with a theme, try the random word generator.”
I gave this exercise hoping that my students and I can figure out places and times most conducive to our writing, but as with many prompts I try, the results were not what I expected. I discovered that I could pretty much write anywhere, which allowed me to practice in places and times when I would normally be idle. Even better, doing this felt less like work and more like a writer version of sketching, which was a lot more enjoyable than fiddling with my phone.
For example, I attended a wake and found myself in a reception room at a funeral home where all the furniture resembled the color of human bodies, so I described the red velvet couch that reminded me of a tongue, the flesh-colored wallpaper, the pale pink drapes like exposed flesh—morbid, I know, but also fascinating. There was a particularly memorable train ride where I would normally listen to music, but ended up drafting a tough section of my novel that I’d been procrastinating on for a few weeks. The fact that I was “doing a writing prompt” rather than “drafting a pivotal part of my book” allowed me to get out of my way and actually get the thing done, when before I would have insisted to myself that I needed to write in total silence.
The exercise made me realize that I can be precious about writing, and sometimes have a tendency not to write things down until they’re perfect in my head. When I was at a residency at Hambidge in March, I went through a period where my mind was free of distraction and was able to write several stories from beginning to end without the need for substantial revision. This was, of course, a good thing, but over the months that followed, I noticed myself being hesitant to write unless I considered the conditions to be ideal, for fear that I would somehow “spoil” the story if I write it down at a time that’s not conducive for my mind to write.
The problem is that conditions are rarely ideal, so waiting until they are is just setting yourself up for frustration. A number of my students reported that when they have cards handy and they’re not waiting for the perfect time and place to write, they have a lot more writing time than they think. And even if what they’re writing won’t be part of a larger work, they still get to practice their skills between other things they’re doing, which helps them with manuscripts they’re envisioning for publication.
So try this exercise and please report back with your discoveries! Maybe you’ll find that you too can write anywhere.