Take Me To The River.  Drop Me in the Water.

My friend, it is the poet's task
To mark his dreams, their meaning ask.
Trust me, the truest phantom man doth know
Hath meaning only dreams may show;
The arts of verse and poetry
Tell nought but dreaming's prophecy.

--Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger, Act III, sc.2

Though everyone dreams at night, much of that activity is lost as soon as we wake, or shortly after.  You can preserve your dream images, however, and make some interesting discoveries as well by keeping a dream notebook or journal.

To begin such a journal, keep pen and paper near your bed and, immediately upon waking, whether in the morning or in the middle of the night, begin describing what you dreamed.  It's crucial to begin writing as soon as you've opened your eyes, since any visual, audio, or tactile stimuli will dilute or cause you to forget dream images. (Hard-core dream recorders keep their notebooks right by their bedsides, and actually begin writing before they've opened their eyes!) Setting an alarm for the middle of the night is also helpful, since you will often be forced awake while in a dream phase of your sleep.  Describe in detail everything you can remember; if you get stuck, go back and add more detail to what you've already written.  The careful recollection of any single image from the dream may help you to remember more.
 

Tracks

Choose one short story from our anthology (preferably one you find a bit puzzling or difficult or even dull), and simply type or write out the whole piece exactly as it is.  OR choose four poems and copy them out just as you find them.  Pay attention, as you write, to that writer's diction, sentence style, phrasing.  At the end of your work, write a brief paragraph explaining with some detail what you observed. (It's hard to know the benefits of this exercise without actually doing it.)
 

There's Always Work at the Post Office

Make a list of people who are (or have been) important to you, people for whom you have strong feelings or who have left you with vivid memories, good or bad.  Select one of the most interesting from your list, then write three versions of an epistolary poem or story addressed to that person.

For each version, heed the following:

Version one: this will be read by yourself and the addressee only.  No one else will ever see it.

Version two: this will be intercepted by an editor, who will then publish it in a literary anthology.  It will be read by thousands.

Version three: this one will never get mailed at all.  Address it to the person in question, but write it mainly for yourself.  You alone will see it.
 
 

Room--Of One's Own
 

Situate yourself in some distinctive, solitary environment.  You might drive out to the country and park on a deserted road; make a snow cave and climb into it; get up in the middle of the night or very early in the morning and take a walk; find Fargo's point of highest elevation and visit it; sit in the student union at some unusual hour, and so on.  Do not pick a place which is necessarily quiet or calming; look for one which is strange to you or even uncomfortable.

When you get to your chosen place, start writing.
 

Intelligence Test (borrowed and adapted from Alberta Turner, I think)

Answer the following questions from a hypothetical intelligence test by picking out the most wrong answers and/or the ones you wish were true.  Make these answers into a prose piece or poem.  Play around; put together something unlike anything you done before.

1) What can you catch on your tongue?

a. memories
b. foul balls
c. snowflakes
d. parents

2) What can you do with an ax?

a. take out a car loan
b. brush your teeth
c. remember your dreams
d. chop wood

3) What can be safely carried in a quart buckets?

a. lucky accidents
b. extinct foxes
c. tiny silver bells
d. suspicions about the Kennedy assassination

4) Which of the following would you eat?

a. an ad for Junior Mints
b. blackberries
c. mindless obedience
d. a sudden explosion of rust

5) What does a screwdriver do?

a. molest paperclips
b. make his kids work on Saturdays
c. twist screws into holes
d. rename the earth's plants and animals

6) What could you probably do if you had a long tail?

a. drape it over your arm
b. thread it through a needle
c. pretend it wasn't yours
d. use it to flick away politicians

7) What would you most likely try to do if you shrank to the size of a pea?

a. wash your feet
b. shout like hell for help
c. memorize Hamlet
d. invite grains of sand to your wedding

8) What CAN'T you do with an egg?

a. send it to a private school
b. reduce its meaning
c. throw it at a math teacher
d. mistake it for the end of the world
 

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Write a story which takes place in a single location, has almost no action, and which involves, at most, four characters.

You might position your characters around a table, in a bed, in two chairs, at a window etc.  These characters should do almost nothing but talk with one another throughout the length of the story, and each should be distinct from the others in interesting ways.  If you like, you might first reflect on opposite tendencies or personalities within yourself, and let each character embody those contraries.  Or you can let the characters develop as you like, and perhaps discover in the making how they in some way reflect contrasting quirks and complexities.

What difficulties are faced by a writer in pacing such a story?  How does the spareness of such a setting affect the other elements of the story?  How does a writer build suspense or develop scenes with such minimal elements?
 
 
 

The Child is Father to the Man

Think back to your childhood and recall some obect you were fond of or intrigued by: some new shoes, your mother's jewelry, a ferris wheel, an abandoned house, a neighbor's hostile cat, your father's buzzsaw, etc. etc.

Now write a short prose piece or poem about this object from the perspective of yourself when you were a child.  Describe and reflect upon the object just as you did years before, and try not to let your adult perceptions, inhibitions and embarrassments intrude.  Allow yourself to say odd, even nonsensical things.  AVOID CUTENESS AND CLICHE COMMENTS OR COMPARISONS.
 
 

Low-Fat Fiction

Take one of your already completed stories and shorten it by half.
 

Fiction on Steroids

Take one of your already completed stories and develop it to three times its original length.
 
 
 

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