Prompt: Arty Starters
Last week, I visited Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. I enjoyed how the current exhibition elicits the full spectrum of reactions, from ‘yacallthatART?’ to ‘WOW’.
I also liked the quirky titles the artists gave to some of their pieces. As I wandered through the museum, I jotted down titles that could work as writing prompts.
Here’s 25 of them which I’ve numbered. Pick what appeals or choose a number (1-25) and write about the title corresponding to it. Perhaps give yourself a minimum limit, such as one page or 10 minutes of writing.
If you want, tweak a title to come up with something different that you would like to write about.
1. You’re Not Thinking Fourth Dimensionally
2. Our Still Lives (Keep Falling)
3. As Venereal Theists Rest / The Natives are Restless
4. Poetic Suicide
5. A Joycean Laugh
6. It’s Such a Thin Line Between Clever and Stupid
7. Chatter
8. It’s Kept Together by Moving All Round
9. Adjustable
10. Pondlurking, Skylarking Freaks of the City
11. Sad Magick
12. Final Path
13. How We Live Nowadays
14. Love Me Safely
15. Shit Did I Really Say That Out Loud
16. Miracle Cure Meeting
17. Look Around Everything is Dirty
18. Transit
19. Cause I See the Light Surrounding You So Don’t Be Afraid
20. The Beginning of the End. The End of the Beginning.
21. Defined By What We Dangle?
22. Space Baby
23. Beat Me, Tap Me, Bore Me
24. Moon Inclusion
25. Surveillance
WritingCompanion 
Hey, I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say GREAT blog!…..I”ll be checking in on a regularly now….Keep up the good work! 🙂
– Marc Shaw
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Thanks very much. Are you writing as well??
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Gneiss post. I like writing stories too so coming to your blog really helped me. Personally I like number 4, Poetic Suicide. Here’s the tiny bit that I came with.
The small apartment was reminiscent of a shack, a barn. It was nothing more than a living room, bedroom, and water bathroom. There was nothing to be prideful of as Dustin Matthers walked in, and sat his bags down. It was very late and the crescent moon left a bliss highlight on his floor. He sat down on his hard, cold wooden floor and grabbed a pen from his pants pocket. He looked around the room for a piece of paper. In the corner he found a balled up love letter. Looking at it in disgust, he took the pen and wrote on the lined paper. As he wrote a beautiful sanguine liquid oozed from his pen. “Wasn’t this black ink?” he thought to himself, immediately dismissing the thought as unworthy. He continued writing, words brilliantly flowing on the paper. “Dealing with that break-up has left me pretty dizzy.” he thought to himself, immediately dismissing the thought as unworthy. The police found his body a few days later.
I was wondering if I should post this to my blog.
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Ah, the trials of writing, even a suicide note, and finding one’s wording ‘unworthy’. Did he die from poetic despair? BTW, I couldn’t get to your blog–the message came up that it’s permanent gone, ie ‘nothinghere2sea’.
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Oh I’m sorry. There must be an error because I didn’t delete my account. 😦
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Thanks Marsha,
The sad fact is that it actually happened! They say, write about what you know! 😉
As Ricky said to Lucy, ‘You have some explaining to do!’
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Some of those titles are really quite funny! My favorite is number 15, perhaps because I’ve done that! Here’s one:
I saw the bracelet on her left wrist. What is she doing, wearing my bracelet? I thought he took it back to the jeweller’s and got his money back? Obviously not! What a lazy bastard. I know it was too chunky for me and fell off my wrist when I let my arm hang down. I told him I didn’t want him to buy me anything more for Christmas. He told me that there were lots of other things in the store that I would like. If that’s the case, then why the hell didn’t he get me one of those? I can see what happened now. He left it too late to take back to the store. I can’t believe he still had it after all of these months we have been separated, and since it was expensive, and it suited her (she is bigger boned than I am), he gave it to her.
“What the hell are you doing wearing my bracelet?” I said. “Oh Shit, I didn’t mean to say that.”
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Nicely done, Arlene. I liked how the character’s thoughts escalate, then she blurts out the question. And that will lead to a confrontation, either between the two women, or later between the bracelet-wearer and the man. Good example of having a character blurt out something, which can provide readers with some insights about the character and the situation.
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