Thursday, August 12, 2010

Ideas are the Prey; Prompts are the Bait; I am the Hunter.


Write prompts are funny things.

The product of the mind that emerges from focusing on a write prompt is usually far different from the actual nature of the prompt. For instance, one may see a torn stage curtain, which may remind one of an embarrassing incident at a family picnic, which may induce feelings of buried shame, which may make one recall the survival instincts one acquired to avoid such feelings of shame, which may lead one to ultimately write about the uneven life of an agoraphobic publicity agent.

This leads me to talk about my very good friend, the amazing Kyle Dunkley.


Before he left to live across the sea and after he quit the Circus, he handed me a gift.


In recognition of my aspirations and efforts to become a writer, he gave me a box of write prompts. Objects not valuable in their monetary worth, but potentially great in their literary worth.


Nobody knew how to turn off the consciousness and lurk around in the sub-conscious like Kyle and, together, we plumbed the depths of nonsense and the ridiculous for hours on end. Now with the Great Wide Blue between us, this box would have to fill his place.

Here is what lay inside:

   
                                        


9 comments:

  1. love this! question: do you think you can you create your own prompts or is the inspiration in the fact that it is something outside yourself?

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  2. I'm not sure. It may be like trying to tickle yourself. The concentration cancels out the desired effect. But I think there is a connection here to the phrase "Write drunk. Revise sober." If you can reach into the seething frothy sub-conscious, you may be able to pull out an inspired idea.

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  3. I think most people's buried shame has something to do with the amazing Kyle Dunkley... Wait!? Is that the moon he gave to you!? Are you a writing Sci-Fi adventure staring mythological warlord puppets!?

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  4. write drunk? that explains why i have writer's block at work... speaking of which, life magazine has a gallery of famous literary drunks and addicts: http://www.life.com/image/50698313/in-gallery/38742/famous-literary-drunks--addicts

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  5. What a great find. Hemmingway's liver protruded from his belly "like a long fat leech." Indeed!

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  6. Amazing post Micah! Makes me miss Uncle Dunkle though. and sarah I love that link. I feel like my best ideas come out under the influence but when sobriety kicks in I can't remember enough for the idea to be any good. Must travel with notebook!

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  7. All he left me was a locket of beard-hair. I miss him.

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  8. He left to live across the sea? Where?

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