Beautiful, Susan. I used a similar but different activity in a recent wordshop (write a childhood journal entry, THEN, change it to third-person, add invented detail and action). She was appalled. My memory is sacred. How can I change that!? We didn't know until the timer went off and she had written about not following the prompt and probably expected to be scolded. I told her that it was fine, valid even, to write about how fictionalizing that memory made her feel.
That’s great. I sometimes suggest that if the prompt doesn’t work for them, to write that - ie: "This prompt sucks. I want to write something else but I don’t know what," sort of thing, and then simply keep writing until something arises.
Beautiful, Susan. I used a similar but different activity in a recent wordshop (write a childhood journal entry, THEN, change it to third-person, add invented detail and action). She was appalled. My memory is sacred. How can I change that!? We didn't know until the timer went off and she had written about not following the prompt and probably expected to be scolded. I told her that it was fine, valid even, to write about how fictionalizing that memory made her feel.
That’s great. I sometimes suggest that if the prompt doesn’t work for them, to write that - ie: "This prompt sucks. I want to write something else but I don’t know what," sort of thing, and then simply keep writing until something arises.