Writing Experiments + Upcoming Flash Immersion Extravaganza!

an entire month of all things flash fiction

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Yet the whole point of science is that it is cutting edge. Comfortable science is an oxymoron. If we want to make new discoveries, that means taking a leap in the dark — a leap we might not take if we’re too afraid to fail.” ~Eileen Parkes, Nature Magazine

Today, flash writers, I want you to think of yourselves as scientists. If you cobble this and that together, add a little electricity, what do you animate? What if you pour your story into a new container? What happens in your brain? Or the reader’s brain? What new synaptic connections can you form? If you stack blocks of narrative on top of each other, will the whole structure collapse? Or will you have invented something entirely new? Test the tensile strength of a new storyline. Graft together disparate elements to create a hybrid. Determine the boiling point of microfiction. Follow your curiosity.

I’m excited today to share a wonderful writing resource from poet Bernadette Mayer, with journal ideas & writing experiments, and I’ve pulled out one in particular for you to try. As I’ve said before, I want you to keep discovering your stories. But first, a couple of announcements.

UPCOMING WORKSHOP

My next 3-in-90 workshop, “Beyond the Ordinary: Exploring Unusual Points of View” is Saturday, March 29th from 1:00- 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time. These ninety minute generative workshops have become very popular and I love teaching them! Find more information and sign-up HERE.

Just watched recording of [Kathy’s] 3 in 90 workshop. Blown away by some of the incredible drafts generated in minutes by writers who attended. I’m just going to say it - Kathy Fish is a witch. If you have a story inside you she will magic it out.” ~Gillian O’Shaunnessy

“Went into [Kathy’s] constraints-centred 'Freedom in Limits' flash workshop feeling nervous, and have come out of it feeling empowered to approach my writing in new ways knowing that fresh insights can appear 🙌 Thanks Kathy!” ~Amber Aspinall

“Just attended this class with the wonderful [Kathy Fish]. This morning my head was empty of ideas, now after Kathy’s prompts it’s positively SWIMMING with ideas. Thank you! 🤩” ~June Gemmell

FLASH IMMERSION EXTRAVAGANZA!!

I’m running another Flash Immersion Extravaganza (a FREE perk for paid subscribers), this time for the entire month of June! The previous two Immersion events were very well attended and lots of fun. Participants drafted hundreds of new flashes in a wildly creative and supportive environment. Many, many of these stories have already gone on to be published. I’m excited to do it all over again!

There’s nothing to sign up for. As before, everything will take place right here, and you may participate as much or as little as you wish. Also, this is an asynchronous event, so drop in whenever is convenient for you.

Note: Although this is a paid subscriber event, I will be unlocking a few posts during the month for free subscribers. But please do consider upgrading! You’ll write LOTS during this month-long intensive. That alone is worth the price of admission! Additionally, you’ll get:

• Exclusive paid subscriber content

• Access to my vast archive of craft articles

• Group writing events and readings

• Paid subscriber perks year round

What to expect:

• Daily Writing Prompts: TWELVE thoughtfully designed writing prompts (3 per week) + feedback, along with some fun pop-up prompts for the days in-between

• Positive, encouraging feedback from your fellow immersionists and myself

• Weekly chats and / or Q & A on various flash fiction topics

• Recommended reading lists

• Substantive craft articles

• Daily inspirations

• Celebration Salon & Reading! (TBA)

• A fun and productive month!

Bernadette Mayer’s Journal Ideas & Writing Experiments

While staying at Kerouac House, I reread poet Bernadette Mayer’s extraordinary Midwinter Day:

“Perhaps Bernadette Mayer’s greatest work, Midwinter Day was written on December 22, 1978 at 100 Main Street, in Lennox, Massachusetts. “Midwinter Day,” as Alice Notley noted, “is an epic poem about a daily routine.” In six parts, Midwinter Day takes us from awakening and emerging from dreams through the whole day—morning, afternoon, evening, night—to dreams again: “. . . a plain introduction to modes of love and reason / Then to end I guess with love, a method to this winter season / Now I’ve said this love it’s all I can remember / Of Midwinter Day the twenty-second of December.”

She also created a fabulously original and poetic writing resource HERE. If you’re a journal-keeper (and she advises writers to keep several), you’ll find lots of really interesting ideas for journals listed. Consider this part of what I have called the essential work of “gathering” for writers:

The Writer as Hunter / Gatherer

WRITING EXPERIMENTS

In the second part of the piece, Mayer gives a lengthy list of writing experiments. Here are a few:

Attempt as a writer to win the Nobel Prize in Science by finding out how
thought becomes language, or does not.
* Take a traditional text like the pledge of allegiance to the flag. For
every noun, replace it with one that is seventh or ninth down from the
original one in the dictionary. For instance, the word "honesty" would be
replaced by "honey dew melon." Investigate what happens; different
dictionaries will produce different results.
* Attempt to write a poem or series of poems that will change the world.
Does everything written or dreamed of do this?

What I love about the whole piece is that one can approach it as actual writing advice or a lyric essay or poem, by turns delightful and strange, and utterly captivating.

LET’S TRY THIS ONE

From Mayer’s list: “Systematically derange the language: Write a work consisting only of prepositional phrases, or, add a gerund to every line of an already existing work.”

I don’t like to ask you all to do something I haven’t tried first myself, so I took three paragraphs of a short story draft and added gerunds all over the place. I also threw in some passive verbs for good measure:

“In the new town, with the new boyfriend, my weight wasn’t being an issue. I wasn’t knowing why, but I was happy it wasn’t being an issue. I wasn’t worrying about my face erupting. I was using the apricot scrub religiously. We were being happy, my boyfriend and I, and we were fucking regularly.

I was telling all of this to the kid who was spreading sauce on pizza dough in a slow, spiraling fashion. He was talking to me without looking up, which I was liking. I was liking the kid because he was not treating me like he was thinking I was a weird, which I was.

The kid was saying he knew a place, in a big old house, on Franklin Street, with a sign. He was saying it was a clinic. I was laughing at the kid knowing this. How could he be knowing this? He was saying he was riding his bike past there every day on the way to The Dinner Bell. He was giving me the name as he was arranging the little pepperoni coins on the sauce in a spiraling fashion.”

I actually kind of like how this experiment altered the voice I had going on for the story. Likely no editor would touch this as is, but I enjoyed the process and it opened up new possibilities.

Your turn! Try this or any one of Bernadette Mayer’s experiments. If you get an interesting or surprising result, I’d love to see it in the comments below.

Thanks for reading, my friends. As always, be gentle with yourselves & stay strong.

Much love,

Kathy