Creative Writing
Journals for Week 2
Hutchinson
Page 18: Try This 2.2
 Begin with the largest general category you
can think of—minerals, food, structures—
thinking big. Then narrow the category step
by step, becoming more specific until you
have a single detailed image. Try it again with
the same large category but narrow in
another direction. Can you, without naming a
quality, make your image suggest an idea or
direct our attitude toward the thing you
describe?
Page 36: Try This 2.8
Write a paragraph about a thrilling or anguished
incident from your childhood or adolescence.
Evoke the emotion you felt in images of all five
senses how the scene (perhaps including your
own body) looked to you, sounded, felt, smelled,
tasted. Allow yourself whatever personification,
metaphor, or simile occurs to you, no matter
how extreme.
Page 24: Try This 2.6
 Quickly list as many clichéd metaphors as you
can think of such as the following: the path
of life, eyes like pools, crazy as a bedbug,
nose to the grindstone, and so forth. Then
switch half a dozen of the comparisons as in
the following: eyes like a bedbug, nose to the
path, the grindstone of life. Some of these
might be fresh and apt! In any case, the
exercise will help you become aware of
clichés and so help you avoid them.
Page 21: Try This 2.4 A
 Exchange your journals with a partner in class.
Then, at the top of one page, write down a bumper
sticker that you have seen and liked on the top of
one of the pages of their journal. Once you’ve done
this, hand the journal back to your partner.
Page 21: Try This 2.4 B
 Describe the car (van, truck, SUV) this bumper
sticker is stuck on—make, model, year, color,
condition. Then, open the door. Describe the
smells and textures. Name three objects you find.
Name a fourth object you’re surprised to find there.
Look up. Here comes the owner. Who, walking
how, wearing what, carrying what, with what facial
expression? The owner says something. What?
Page 12: Try This 1.6
Choose a different topic from the one you chose last week.
Make use of these prompts or trigger lines for easy free-writes.
Begin writing and keep writing. Anything at all. Whatever the
prompt suggests. Keep going. A little bit more.
 This journal is…
 My mother used to have…
 There was something about the way he…
 The house we lived in…
 In this dream I was…
 She got out of the car…
 The first thing I want in the morning…