Thanks to an off the cuff remark by one of the participants in my Thursday morning writing class, I came up with a whole host of potential ice-breakers last week. I'm always on the look out for new 'warm up' writing exercises that are fun, vaguely useful and never reminiscent of terrible office team-building days.
The man I will call Mr H (in case he's too modest to own his ideas here...) mentioned he had once written - for creative, not personal reasons, you understand - a list of 'Five Reasons to Date Oneself'.* This started the cogs turning and I took the idea if not the content to another writing group, twisted it to make it as convoluted as possible and asked them to create a list of things they would write Ten Reasons about. If it came from personal experience, all the better. Yes, it did take half the class to explain what I meant but it was worth it.
Here they are:
1 Ten Reasons to take a metronome on holiday...
2 Ten Reason to do a jigsaw puzzle upside down...
3 Ten Reasons why haggis is better than chicken...
4 Ten Reasons to drink tea straight from the teapot...
5 Ten Reasons to wear two pair of trousers...
6 Ten Reasons never, ever to date your ex-girlfriend's mother..
7 Ten Reasons to carve a pumpkin in the bath...
8 Ten Reasons why you should never write lists starting 'Ten Reasons'...
9 Ten Reasons not to climb onto your roof in December in your pyjamas...
10 Ten Reasons to cut jelly beans in quarters...
I didn't go as far as actually asking for the accompanying Ten Reasons... best not, I thought. No questions that all of these people have earned their place in a creative writing group, or at least, it keeps them off the streets.
And you know what? Reading these lists is like having a tune stuck in your head: you'll now spend the rest of the day mentally thinking up Ten Reasons.... Feel free to post them here!
Anne
*No, I'm not going to list them... Mr H might have his own plans for them, but there's nothing to stop you making a list of your own!
)