“Wow” she whispered.
It was going to be like that. Rude awakenings. Quite literally discovering ugly truths about your new lover before the coffee was cold in the cup. Leesa’s coffee always went cold. She didn’t really love coffee truth be told, but it was the one social libation she could keep up with, cocktails required too much strategizing. She swirled the milky dregs listening to the shower run on the other side of the wall. It was good to have a prop in her hand. Or maybe not, she was squeezing the porcelain tightly, as if some mutant strength was about to activate and flatten the cup in her hands; her two hands opposed in battle, like her body and her mind. Sex still hummed in her veins but her brain was screaming. Who even uses the word miscegenation? The cup shattered against the door leaving a creamy brown birthmark on the glossy white.
prompt in bold, dipped from On Beauty by Zadie Smith
I experimented with the quick dip exercise today.
A little context, back in 2012/13 when I was in deep grief I spent a year doing a daily 8 minute creative writing exercise. I was inspired by my friend Julia at these five minutes, who made a creative commitment to write five minutes a day. They would dip into a book or magazine for a prompt, set the timer and let the words flow. No editing. Posting kept them accountable. It is basically literary improv. I literally met Julia doing improv at Second City.
I upped the time to 8 minutes because it takes me at least two minutes to orientate my fingers on the keyboard and settle my thoughts. Today I expanded the prompt to include my last selfie along with a random line from something I’m currently reading. It was fun to let the image and words influence each other. It was fun to just do something creative without any agenda. To create for the sake of it. I forgot how liberating that is. There’s still 1432 minutes to focus on work, auditions, get political, get engaged, be active, be zen, eat, sleep, connect and chill. But this 8 minutes offers a promising return on investment. And if there’s a story that wants to be expanded, I can flip that eight into infinite possibilities.
Who wants to play? Take a dip, set a timer and let the words flow? Let me know how it goes. You may surprise yourself. Improv is like that.
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