Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 09:08:20 -0400 From: who is my neighbor? Subject: [WRITERS] EXERCISE: A Place in Your Heart [in case you didn't know it, there is a contest going on. For more details, slide across the Web to http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/summer98/summer.html and write fast -- the deadline is July 17...next Friday!] At 04:22 PM 7/9/98 -0500, damiana wrote: :)this is great! i don't know if my "writing " quite :)matches up to some of the people on this list, but geez, :)this "specific place" thing I tend to write about on a :)daily basis. essay style. of course, i don't really :)live in an original place. i live in new york city, one :)of the places that inspires millions of people to write :)it down. :) :)*sigh* :) Sigh no more! For in the tradition of Tarot cards and similar explorations of inward vision, I'm going to show you one way to make sure you're writing about original thoughts... even in New York City, where millions have written before. First of all, pick a number from 1 to 6. You may roll dice, look at your watch and see which second it is right now then divide by 10 to get a number from 0 to 5 -- and add one, or simply let your mystic mental machinations materialize the digit of your desire. You got your number yet? 1. "All places are distant from heaven alike." Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, (1621), 2.2.4 2. "One always begin to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind." Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857-58), 1.2 3. "A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another." Samuel Johnson, quoted in Hester Lynch Piozzi's Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786). 4. "A place is nothing, not even space, / Unless at its heart a figure stands." Amy Lowell, "Thorn Piece," A Shard of Silence (1957). 5. "What I was at home, I was in a better place; but travelers must be content." Shakespeare, As You Like It (1599-1600), 2.4.17 6. "In the Big City a man will disappear with the suddenness and completeness of the flame of a candle that is blown out." O. Henry, "The Sleuths," Sixes and Sevens (1911). [Quotations from The International Thesaurus of Quotations by Rhoda Tripp ISBN 0-06-091382-7] Now you have a quotation. Pick another number from one to six... 1. Your childhood pet 2. The best day you had at school when you were young 3. Your favorite dessert 4. A song you hum when you're not thinking about it 5. A favorite store 6. A place you've never been and never want to go and for the cherry on your sundae... Another number from one to six? 1. A journey 2. A game 3. A war 4. A machine 5. An organism 6. A society Now take your quote, your personal reference, and your metaphorical lens. Write one down and think of at least five points about it. These can be things it reminds you of, they can be thoughts or sensations that pop into your mind, they can be almost anything. Write them down. [If five is too easy, stretch -- make your quota 10 or even more!] Put that list aside. Take another one of your three "seeds" and write it down. Think of five points for it. Now write down your last seed and develop five points for it. Now look at the 18 points or topics. Do you see common threads? Are there conflicts? Can you put some part of these together in an interesting way? Do you need to add something? Spend a little time wrestling with your own thinking, then look at how to present what you have developed in essay form. Original? With all of that personal insight about the quote, something from your life, and one of the great metaphors of our age? It will be a piece that only you could write. And that's original! tink