ReadWritePoem’s prompt #71 asks to dig on a solid first line, either yours or someone else’s, in order to generate some new work. I offer the following, which is courtesy of me whyfe:

“Can you start early? I have to leave for the funeral soon.”

Granted, that’s two lines, but still it leads to one thought. Of course, she’d originally written it as:

“Can you start early, I have to leave for the funeral soon?”

Which is probably closer to how it would read if you could read words in the moment they flung from a mouth.

This all leads to an April project, in honor what some call “National Poetry Month”. Taking lines that Courtney (the whyfe in question) wrote out this morning, starting with the above “Can you start early…”, I’ll be writing and posting a new short piece every day through the month.

The rules:

1. Must have something new every day
2. Pieces must be at least 30 words (but not necessarily 30 lines)
3. I can deviate from the original line itself, as long as it serves as a prompt for what becomes the final piece.

Feel free to play along, offer feedback, and submit your own work. After all – when a month dedicated to poetry begins with a day dedicated to fools, what could be better than a little foolish work?

The following examples come from a creative exercise using oracle cards. Students draw four cards (face down), flip them over, and then write a four-sentence story (one sentence per card). Students work on getting the most out of their words, while the stories often serve as seeds for larger tales. Both pieces are published with permission from the writers, 5th grade students at Woodstock Elementary

Serpent of conflict
by Justin Chen

There once was a serpent who cast a spell on a man named Conflict.
Conflict transformed into a bear.
One night, the Seeker of Water turned Conflict into a wolf.
Now Conflict struggles with each full moon.

Choice
by Chinyere Ike

The choice was made.
The Sacred Flame killed the Circle of Life, instantly overcoming the God of Fire.
This cast the Flame as the new ruler.
He overcame the universe, and everyone lived unhappily forever.

Normally when someone says, “Jump off” in relation to writing, it conveys images of finding a bridge. Portland, as you may know, is a town of bridges. We don’t need anyone yelling jump off, especially not to the approximately 250,000 writers who live here.

Jumping off is a practice that can be especially useful when your creative piece is in its seedling phase. What it means, essentially, is to take a chunk from your existing narrative, regardless of the draft or version that you’re in, and “jump it over” to another piece of paper, Word document, or whatever your chosen format happens to be. Once you’re away from the structure of your existing narrative, you have the opportunity to poke, prod and explore a dynamic scene as a means of working on dialog, setting, description, what have you.

I encourage – and utilize – jump off exercises for a number of reasons. First, it’s good to get out of the story you’re writing, especially if you find yourself focusing on where the narrative is headed and how your dialog, setting or description will take you there. Working within the structure of your narrative can at best confound and distract you, and at worst could discourage you from going forward. No one needs to be discouraged, especially not at the onset.

Jumping onto a new page will bring more light into the room, give your characters, scene, etc. some fresh air and new opportunities. You’re essentially giving them a second life.

In the end, your jumping off exercise will not only help you find the voice or words you’re looking for, but you may discover that, in pulling something out and running in a slightly different direction, you’ve invented another story, or at least a new idea for another story.

Don’t let the form hold you back. If your two main characters have been locked in a bedroom argument for the past three days of writing and there’s no end in sight for you or them, take them out of there, set them on a new page and see what comes.