Writing Exercise

I did this spontaneously last night without thinking about why I was doing it first.  Then later I realized I had been coming up with piles and piles of material for fiction or even creative nonfiction essays, without realizing it, and while having lots of fun.

What I did was, I opened a Word document, went to my list of friends on Facebook, and wrote down a sentence or two about each of them.  (185.)  Originally I had their names in the document, but then I noticed a trend - I was writing either a nice, interesting, non-controversial memory, OR - I was writing the juiciest gossip I had ever heard about them, and as someone who listens carefully when people talk, I have got a lot of gossip stored up.  So then I nixed their names and put ______ instead.

I don't know if I'm explaining this well.  Here are some examples:

______ used to be in the carpool in high school and would sit in the middle of the backseat, lean forward, and talk a mile a minute. She has lots to say very quickly. She also once sang “Hotel California” really loud in the carpool.

______ was going to become a monk or something last I heard.

______ used to hold her forefingers and thumbs in two circles and put them over her eyes while opening her eyes exaggeratedly wide during the part of the Dixie Chicks’ song “Goodbye Earl” that goes, “Those black-eyed peas / tasted all right to me, Earl.” Everyone would sing the song together and that part was “her” part, the part where everyone looked at her expectedly and she did that and everyone laughed.


______ once sat next to me at dinner at summer camp when I was 14 and our knees kept rubbing together and I got turned on by it and I in one of my first confiding conversations with Jenn I told her that.

______ wanted to be loved for knowing a lot, not understanding that people love you so much more when you pretend to know so much less.

______ last I knew her talked about herself incessantly and was a horrible listener. I almost told her that’s why I stopped returning her phone calls but then never did. I doubt anyone has ever told her that.


______ used to read the morning announcements in the front office in junior high in the exaggerated voice you sometimes use to read to little kids. It was cute of her and no one mentioned it so she never got embarrassed about it or stopped doing it.

______ always dates Asian girls in tube tops with hoop earrings and eyeliner.

______ used to pretend her foot was a telephone and pretend to answer it and everyone thought it was hysterical. This was in junior high.

______ is my hairdresser and one time when I mentioned my hair has natural highlights he said in this very haughty way, “No it doesn’t.”

______ is cute in theory but he makes me uncomfortable, like he is bored by my stories. Marianne said after we hung out with him, “He seemed interested in what you were saying, but really bored by me,” and I said, “No! It was the other way around, I swear!” I can’t begin to analyze how you manage to give everyone that impression separately.


______ told everyone she “had bipolar” about five years before everyone was telling everyone about their bipolarity. She was a mess – alienated everyone without knowing she was doing it. A band girl. She used to hog up the bathroom for like an hour and only come out when I threatened to pee on her bed and then she’d come out and mention she’d been talking to herself in the mirror the whole time. I do that too, but sheez.

______ sounded so different when I talked to her at her wedding. Her voice was nothing like it had been when we were 8 years old. But then she laughed and sounded just the same, and tears sprang to my eyes, that person I knew is still in there somewhere and laughing.

______ is smug, so smug that I have almost blocked her status updates so many times, but I like pinpointing what it is I don’t like about a person so I keep hers up and think to myself, “Smug.”

______ once replied thusly to an aghast, “You can’t SWIM?!”: “No, but I can ice skate.” She said it really quiet and I was the only one who heard and I wanted to do a shitty cartwheel to celebrate how much I liked it.

______ wrote an essay about being asexual but I didn’t think she really was one. She even put things in the essay about hating it when people don’t believe her. Sorry though. I just didn’t buy it.

______ is caustic and dry and we could have, could have, could have, didn’t. Probably never will.

______ used to kick his own butt when he ran.

Eh?  It's super fun and I surprised myself with what I came up with.  There are a lot of anecdotes brimming toward the front of your brain and I feel like this plucks them out.  If you try it let me know how it goes!