A Note on Fastwrites:  

Fastwrite means write fast.  Don’t let your hand leave the page…just keep it moving and allow the words to keep coming. Many of you have experienced this technique as a way to keep your inner censors at bay…to allow unconscious thoughts and connections to flow freely. If you get stuck, immediately write down the first line you started with and start again.  The prompt may not do anything for you.  That’s OK…write what wants to be written.  Some people hate these, some love them. If you don’t like this…best to express it as part of your fast write…you might learn something about your growing edges through that!   The idea is to keep the creative juices flowing and allow what wants to -to come out.  This often shakes out some raw material for future writing.

1. Write a letter of gratitude to an author of a book you have read and loved. Say how it moved you, what surprised you, what you still long for.

2. Examine the notion of “safety.” What does it mean to you? What characteristics would make a space safe for your soul? Consider listing spaces in your past (or present) that feel unsafe and examine in a line or two why they felt this way.

3. Spend 15 minutes outside, observing. Write exactly what you see, try not to craft or edit, just report. Once you have it all down, then circle whatever on your page feels like a “keeper” and arrange them into a “piece”: a short poem, a sonnet, or a descriptive paragraph.

4. In the excerpt from The Heroine’s Journey, Murdock says, “The sense of loss these women express is a yearning for the feminine, a longing for a sense of home within our own bodies and community…Although many companies are now training upper management in a more feminine or “Beta-style” mode of leadership, which values feelings, intuition, and relationship, many women complain of undervaluing the feminine parts of themselves.” Write about a “feminine part” of yourself that has felt undervalued in the outside world of work or education.

5. Ask yourself, “What is my deepest passion, really? What moves me profoundly? And let the answer float up from the truest, most vulnerable place in your heart. Greet this answer like it was your own newborn self being placed in your arms.” (See what floats up from your truest place when you ask your self this question and write about it.)

6. Write an ode/vignette/prose poem to the “common, ordinary, daily presentations inside this soft world” that bring you joy.

7. List 10 images you can remember from today: a co-worker’s expression, a street scene, a song you heard, a news item on the radio—anything no matter how ordinary. Find a way that these 10 items are connected; if nothing comes, create a connection. Write a paragraph explaining the connections, or a drawing which contains all 10 images, or a one page story which weaves all the images into it.

8. Make a list of what is still too difficult for you to write about. You may never share it…it’s just for you, but I urge you to take a glimpse and expand your awareness to see what is still in hiding.

9. Make a gratitude list. What fills you with deep gratitude at this time of year? How might you shape this list? Into a Poem, a letter…?

10. Begin a fastwrite with: I am trying to remember…

11. Pay attention to serendipity, to the unexpected, to the possible connections between seemingly separate things. At the end of a day, write a one-page account of WHAT HAPPENED; include as many concrete details as you can remember. Then, circle possible connections…what do you notice?