During his interview with the Write the Book podcast, Tony Trigilio (Proof Something Happened) suggests this prompt adapted from John Daido Loori’s The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life. Choose a topic – an object, memory, or experience – and quietly contemplate its details and the emotions that arise. As you get more comfortable with the familiar, other aspects – odd, strange, subtle – will express themselves. Use this to form a poem or piece of writing. Write about your topic’s less obvious elements and what it is not. Like a painter working with negative space, this approach can help you discover the fullest sense of your subject matter, Loori says.
