When I am generating prompts I often open a poetry book and browse haphazardly
looking for a phrase or a line which "tweaks. I then generate a fresh phrase or line
from that (only about 5% of the time do I actually use the exact line.)
Today I picked up Emergency Kit" Poems for Strange Times, and my random-start page was P43
and the first poem (actually, now I've returned to check it's actuall part 3 of a longer poem) was "The Third Lesson".
The actual poem is "Johan Joachim Quantz's Five Lessons" by W. S. Graham.
I read, "Karl you are late."
and on my list of prompts wrote, "Jennifer you are late."
In L2 are the words "I am cold waiting." but I don't remember reading them.
I suspect I picked them up, but not consciously. I didn't read the poem and haven't read it before.
I did see, before I flicked the page, "Play me the dance you made for the barge master" and that
morphed to become "play me the song you played for the king"
I think I was already writing, i don't know for sure. That is the prompts, when I looked at them
were, basically, a story written in short lines, like a poem.
It was so obviously a story I had to sort the lines alphabetically and then
switch them around a little as so many had the same start-words. A rhetoric
had just imposed itself on me and a story "already out there" had leaped into life.
I THINK I may have seen a title "The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever"
I didn't use it, but there's a line, "in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate"
and the next line has "river. I feel sure I saw the word "rhododendrons" somewhere
but I can't find it now, and I THOUGHT most of the other phrases were copied or
re-invented/bastardised, but now, having written/found a story I can't find the prompts!
The story I've presented is 90% prompts and a few conjunctions.
And the whole thing was just THERE, waiting. The end was roaring at me.
Unfortunately, I have sorted, cut, pasted etc so don't have the prompt list in its original state
EUREKA!!!
I HAVE got the original prompts in the original order, as prompt-written.
I had the brainwave of copying the doctored list to safety and then backing up through word, cutting cuts, un-sorting sorts, un-pasting pastes.
I managed to back up as far as the original list of prompts and it really is, almost, a story right off the bat.
I think something, "Happened to me"
Now, question is, did I write a story somehow, half-consciously, prompted by a prompt or two? Was it already somehow in my head and I went looking for the phrases to fit?
Perhaps you would look at the list and NOT see it, nothing needed to be moved, as a story. I don't know.
I so DESPERATELY want to post that list now, but anyone interested, why not bang off a flash first and let's see if we all get to a similar place?
The prompt list is 172 Words. The story is 264 words.
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DON'T READ ON IF YOU ARE WRITING
A FLASH FROM THE PROMPT-LIST POSTED
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DON'T READ ON IF
YOU ARE WRITING
A FLASH FROM THE
PROMPT-LIST POSTED
Here are the original prompts
Jennifer, I am disappointed.
You are late.
You have made me cold.
Play me the song you played for the king
Unless you would rather work in the kitchens
Take off your coat, sit down.
There are countries with grass, and fish in their rivers.
We could go swimming and throw water
We could throw pebbles and make them skip
And cut paths and tunnels through the rhododendrons
I am not loved, so things like this are precious
Last night I saw you looking down from the wall
Last night I saw your eyes, like a sow's
I saw you consider the thoughts of a street-singer, a lyre-player
I saw you wonder about eating bread
You were thinking of undoing your hair
You were thinking of running down hills
You were thinking, that is bad enough
I tell you this because I am concerned for you
I do not speak from malice
I am not a monster
There is no reason to fear me, Jennifer.
Now look, you have made it rain.
and then the story
The Admonishment
Jennifer, I am disappointed. You are late. The fire is almost out and you have made me cold. Make up a new fire and then play me the song you played for the king.
Unless you would rather work in the kitchens?
Wait! Take off your coat, sit down. Let me tell you about the world. Jennifer.
There are countries with grass, and fish in their rivers, countries where we could go swimming and throw water, where we could throw pebbles and make them skip, where there are fertile hillsides pink and purple with flowers where slaves cut paths and tunnels through the rhododendrons, and people walk through not trying to get anywhere.
I am sorry to show you my disappointment, Jennifer, but I am not loved, so things like this are precious. You are late because you are tired, because you went late to your room, because last night you slept badly.
Last night I saw you looking down from the wall. Last night I saw your eyes, like a sow's. You looked, you thought. I saw you consider the thoughts of a street-singer, a lyre-player. I saw you wonder about eating bread.
You were thinking of undoing your hair. You were thinking of running down hills.
I know, in the end, you did not do these things, but you were thinking, that is bad enough.
Jennifer, I tell you this because I am concerned for you. I do not speak from malice.
I am not a monster. There is no reason to fear me, Jennifer.
Now look, you have made it rain.
264 Words
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