August 12, 2019

Monday, August 12

 

I am finding that I text more and more these days to communicate with the people in my life, personal and professional. Texting as a communication device requires – well, should require – brevity, although if you are my daughter you send 27 brief text messages that make up one long thought. But she’s in the midst of planning a wedding; in this circumstance, one must be enthusiastically forgiving.

With that in mind – I mean the reliance on texting, not my daughter’s texting methods – I am asking you this week to take a look at the last few texts you wrote on your smartphone – with the hopes that you use a smartphone – and write 500 words off one of your texts. You might create a story from whole cloth; you might write a non-fiction essay on a particular topic; you may wax poetic on items you need from the grocery store. 

As always, have fun with this. I encourage you to read your work aloud to anyone willing to listen; command the denizens of your local coffee shop or watering hole if you must. And if you are one of my workshop students, send your work along and I will read it. I have run off to the ocean for the next couple of weeks, so chances are you won’t hear back from me. But know I’ll have read your work.

 

Jane