At
Thursday evening's Gotham Writers’ Workshop free
90-minute Creative Writing 101 class in Bryant Park’s Reading Room, Alex Steele
invited participants to engage in several short writing exercises, including
one focusing on the imagination. Inviting those in attendance to randomly attach
nouns to the word “the”, the class developed the following list to serve as writing prompts.
The Stones (my contribution)
The Girl
The Statue
The Eyesore
The Voice
The Google
The
Panelist
Raising
my pen above my pad of paper with list of prompts, I closed my eyes and lowered my hand, the
tip of the pen coming to rest on “The Panelist”. I then wrote, allowing my imagination to lead
me. This four paragraph vignette is the result.
The
panelist sat in his own sweat, not sure how to respond to the question from the
audience. He had been billed as a man of
knowledge, an expert even, and a profound thinker, yet he had no words, no ideas,
and no answer to offer in response to the query. His mind was as blank as Kant’s
tabula.
His
heart pounding at a fearful rate, his fingers fidgeting with pencil in his
hand, he loosened his shirt collar as he thought his moment of silence
certainly betrayed his incompetence. Then it struck him, like a dream image
arising from Jung’s collective unconscious. Inspiration burst forth.
“You
ask a deep and profound question” he said, “and sometimes, I think—no, I
believe, that the questions we ask are far more important than any answer
someone might give us. So never stop asking questions. And do not take the bullshit answers of so
called expert panelists as the last word.
The answer to your question, if there is an answer, is within you.”
He paused. He heard a silent gasp, then a single hand
clap followed by a cacophony of hands clapping and growing exponentially into
thunderous applause. He set his pencil
down, folded his hands in front of him, looking smugly at the audience in front
of him. With humble self-confidence he breathed a sigh of relief. His
reputation as a profound thinker was intact.
2 comments:
Bravo! So I wish I had access to such workshops in my neck of the woods....
Gotham Writers Workshop offers some on-line courses but I do not have any personal experience with them.. I have not paid for any of their courses. I have attended those courses that are free.
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