Free-write: Henry David Thoreau

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." 

–Henry David Thoreau

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Carl Sandburg

“Beware of advice—even this.”

Carl Sandburg

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Chairman Fred Hampton

"Because with some things, you have to learn by seeing it or either participating in it…Because you can have as many degrees as a thermometer. If you don't have any practice, then you can't walk across the street and chew gum at the same time." 

-Chairman Fred Hampton

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Hanif Adburraqib

"The truth is, if we don't write our own stories, there is someone else waiting to do it for us. And those people, waiting with their pens, often don't look like we do and don't have our best interests in mind."

-Hanif Adburraqib

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Ralph Ellison

"I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest." -Ralph Ellison

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: James Baldwin

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive."

James Baldwin

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free write: Zora Neale Hurston

"I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living.” –Zora Neale Hurston

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Edna St. Vincent Millay

"I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes."

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Jean Paul Sartre

"Freedom is what we do with what is done to us." -Jean Paul Sartre

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: T.S. Eliot

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.” 

T.S. Eliot 

 INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Ray Bradbury

“I don’t believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously.”

Ray Bradbury

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Andre Dubus III

"I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that’s the job of art.”

Andre Dubus III

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Philip Roth

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”

Philip Roth

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Saul Williams

"We are defined by our ability to resonate and shape sounds.  Word.  Therefore what we say is of the utmost importance.  What we say matters (becomes matter)… We are not powerless.  We do live and speak with the power of determining our realities and affecting our environment both positively and negatively." –Saul Williams

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: Ernest Hemingway

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”-Ernest Hemingway

INSTRUCTIONS: 

What does this make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  

Free-write: e.e. cummings

Our free-write today comes from American modernist e.e. cummings's "A Poet's Advice to Students":

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people : but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself. 

Do you agree with cummings that you can be taught to think, believe, or know, but not to feel? Reflect on this in a five-minute free write.  Remember, you must not stop writing during the five minutes.  If you can't think of what to write, write "I can't think of what to write."

Free-Write: Just a Minute (Flashback for RWA)

I’ve only just a minute,

Only sixty seconds in it.

Forced upon me, can’t refuse it,

Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,

But it’s up to me to use it.

I must suffer if I lose it,

Give an account if I abuse it,

Just a tiny little minute,

But eternity is in it.

-Dr. Benjamin E. Mays

What does this poem make you think of?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember you cannot stop writing during the five minutes.  Even if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write."  You've only just five minutes.

Free-write: Sa'di

Sa'di was a great Persian poet and philosopher who lived in Shiraz, Iran in the 13th century.  He wrote the Gulistan in which he recounts:

I never complained of the vicissitudes of fortune, nor suffered my face to be overcast at the revolution of the heavens, except once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes. I came to the chief of Kfah in a state of much dejection, and saw there a man who had no feet. I returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies, and endured my want of shoes with patience...

This story speak to the number of old sayings to the effect that whenever you feel you have it bad, there's always someone who has it worse.  What do you think about this?  Reflect on it in a five-minute free-write.  Remember: don't stop writing for the duration of the five minutes.

Free-write: Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes wrote "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" in which he concludes:

We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

What does it mean to build a temple for tomorrow "strong as we know how"?  What does it mean to be "free within ourselves"?  Reflect on that for five-minutes in a free-write.  Remember you must not stop writing for the five minutes.

Free-write: Octavio Paz's The Labyrinth of Solitude

En cada hombre late la posibilidad de ser o, más exactamente, de volver a ser otro hombre.

 translation

In every man there is the possibility of his being--or, to be more exact, of his becoming once again--another man.

What does this mean?  We were other people before?  How so?  Reflect on this in a five-minute free-write.