On Writing Without Measurement
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I write prompts in the way someone else might write poems, micro-fictions, philosophical aphorisms, or other very small items of literature. Some of my prompts seem like paradoxical jokes: walk ten miles and write five words, or go across the room and write 10,000 words. But they are serious refutations of certain received ideas; they are about seeing how broader social measurements regarding what matters can be wildly inaccurate.
For example, we tend to think of a single sentence as inconsequential. Like, who cares? But if you have the experience of taking a long walk and writing a sentence, and you feel satisfaction, you might see how that sentence is amazing, how it’s totally worth it to walk ten miles to find it. By the same token, what if you went across your room and that act generated thousands of words? What does that tell you about just being present in your room?
How can this be? It’s a relief to realize that something we ostensibly don’t care about, or don’t notice, is a precious resource. These prompts might knock you off kilter and help you uncover something whose value can’t be measured and has nothing to do with measurement.
