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Load the Basket, Fill the Jug |
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Written by Karen Gibson
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Thursday, 24 January 2008 18:00 |
Friday's writing: Set Your Timer
Do you have postcards you've collected over the years, or family photographs -- either candid ones or ones so old that you're not quite sure who's in them? Flea markets and antique shops are also good sources of old postcards and family pictures for you to work with. Choose one that speaks to you, or deal them out like cards if you're working with a group. Set the timer for fifteen minutes and write,using that photo of postcard to spark your imagination. If the postcard you picked shows scenery or a street scene, what feeling or mood does it evoke? What might be happening beyond its edge, where you can't see?
If the postcard shows people, what do you imagine they are saying to one another? What is the relationship among them? Why are they dressed the way they are? Is any music playing? What just happened or is about to happen? Did they just receive good or bad news? Write from their point of view. Become them.
If you chose a candid family photo, study it carefully. What was going on in that picture? What is the subtext; what tension or meaning underlies the moment that image was recorded? Perhaps the photo is from a time in your life that continues to resonate for you, a year in which the details remain vivid and meaningful.
In the photograph, is your mother making apple strudel with her Pomeranian at her feet? What is she thinking? Is the not a cookie-making mom? Or is your father in the driveway sitting behind the wheel of his black Caddy that seemed to grow bigger as he grew older and smaller? How does he feel about that? Perhaps your brother is standing beside his first car, a turquoise Corvair convertible, and after you took the picture with your Instamatic, he put the top down and drove you to get an ice=cream cone and the ice cream got in your hair on the way home. What else do you see as you look at the photo? Does it fill you with nostalgia, remorse? What do you know now that you didn't know when the photo was taken? Write for fifteen minutes about whatever the photo inspires.
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Writer's Corner - Pen On Fire 