Write Yourself Into a Corner

A writing challenge for boxing yourself in to find your way out

Photo: Charlie Finch (and few posed items from my desk!)

I like to set challenges for myself when I’m stuck. Not stuck for ideas. I have a list. But stuck inside the idea. Like getting in your car and the engine won’t turn over. Maybe you’re reaching for a phrase, a word, but come up empty, or you can’t articulate a feeling to complete your thought. When that happens to me I find it helpful to do the writer’s equivalent of stretching. My first go-to is usually a crossword puzzle. After that, I read other essays. If I’m still not able to pull a good idea out of my head, I’ll go for a walk or start to write something else, usually with a self-imposed restriction or constraint.

That type of writing challenge has been around for a while. In fact, in the 1960s people referred to it as Oulipo, which is short for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, which translates into Workshop of Potential Literature. The idea is to give yourself an arbitrary rule, write under that rule, and then see what thoughts and ideas shake loose. Probably the most extreme example is a 300-page novel by Georges Perec called La Disparition. He wrote it without using the letter e. Incredibly, Gilbert Adair, a Scottish novelist, later translated that work into English, also without using the letter e. There is also a game called N+7, where you take every noun in your piece and replace it with the seventh noun down in the dictionary. Not as much of a challenge as it is a fun, mad-lib style exercise to see the meaning of what you wrote hijacked or demolished. There are also snowball poems, where you start with a one-letter word and each word that follows has to be one letter larger. You can do that with sentences as well, start with one-word and then grow each sentence that follows over a paragraph or two.

And there are plenty of games you can use at your desk if you have ten free minutes. Say, write a paragraph with no word longer than five letters. Or put together a scene with no adjectives. Write something that never uses the word the. You get the point, but check out this link to find more: Oulipo | Oulipo. The challenges are often less about writing something good, and more about forcing yourself to see something from a new angle because you put blinders up on all the normal ones. You’ll be forced down paths you might not have thought to take without them. It’s like getting lost on purpose so you can discover a new place to eat.

Anyway, I recently found myself in need of getting lost, so I made up a challenge: write something made entirely, or close to it, of cliches, ad slogans, self-help jargon, bumper sticker wisdom, etc. The goal was to see if I could generate meaning, motion, or pressure, despite using only phrases written so many times they’ve lost meaning on their own.

I started by collecting various slogans and cliches and sorting them by emotional tone. Then, once I had enough, I started to move them around. Somewhere in the moving, the reading, and the thinking, the mass of empty phrases started to find meaning. At least to me. I’m not sure you’ll agree, but my result is below. It’s a prose poem titled Leave The Light On. I cheated a bit by adding in a dialogue response layer—but the point isn’t to follow a rule blindly until you have nothing. It’s to follow a rule closely until you have something. And finding something, in the end, may mean you have to break a rule.

Check out my result below. I won’t explain it. You shouldn’t have to explain a poem if you’ve done your job, though I’m not sure I did here. But I’m curious what you find in it. Is there movement through it or pressure in it? Who is in the conversation, and why does it matter? If it does at all.

And then, try it yourself! Build yourself a rule and write. Maybe borrow mine. Put something together and then break the rule. Post what you come up with below. I’d love to have a new challenge for myself or to see how you managed mine.

Here’s my prose poem from the challenge:

Leave The Light On

You can do anything you set your mind to. We didn’t raise a quitter. Hard work pays off. You get out what you put in. You can do anything.

The world doesn’t owe you anything, but if you show up and give it everything you’ve got, it will meet you halfway. That’s just how it works. That’s just the way it is. You can do anything.

Okay.

So you showed up?

I did.

You gave it everything. You brought your A-game to every room you were ever let into, and you forced it into a few you weren’t, because you knew closed mouths don’t get fed and winners knock. You networked. You leaned in. You thought outside the box. You moved fast and broke things, failed forward and pivoted and disrupted and added value and built your personal brand, because your name is your reputation and your reputation is everything.

That’s what I hear.

You hustled. Rise and grind. You burned the candle at both ends, and slept when you were dead.

Which, it turns out, was almost never. I think.

Yes. But you lived your best life. Or you tried. You tried to live your best life. And for a while it worked, or it looked like it worked which, in a manner of speaking, is close enough. You had the breakfast of champions and you treated yourself. Because you were worth it. You had it your way and you deserved a break today. Good vibes only, sir, because home is where the heart is, but opportunity doesn’t knock twice. So you answered the call and went where the grass was greener. New city, new you. This is your year, right? This is your season. Every season was your season. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it. That’s what we told you.

Okay.

Did you blink?

I did.

You blinked?

Yes.

Shit.

Looks like your account has been flagged, and this is your final notice regarding your outstanding balance. We made several attempts to reach you, but due to insufficient funds, your transaction cannot be processed. Please contact customer service during regular business hours. Our representatives are available Monday through Friday, eight to five, excluding holidays. We appreciate your patience. Your call is important to us.

Are you there?

Please hold.

Okay.

We’re sorry. We understand this is frustrating. We want to make this right. Unfortunately, at this time, we are unable to accommodate your request. We wish you all the best. Thank you for being a customer.

Please hold. Your wait time is currently—

Hey. It’s me.

Please hold.

I hear you breathing.

Please hold.

I’m gonna go now.

Wait.

Just checking in.

Thinking of you.

You’ve been on my mind.

I’m still here.

Are you taking care of yourself? You have to take care of yourself. Is your cup full? You can’t pour from an empty cup you know. Get some rest. Eat something. The basics. Sometimes it’s just the basics.

Are you there?

Please hold.

No pressure. Call when you can. Or don’t call. Text is fine. Or just send a thumbs up.

Please hold.

You don’t have to have it all together. Nobody has it all together. We’re all just doing the best we can. That’s all any of us can do. One day at a time. One foot in front of the other.

Come home.

Please hold.

Come as you are?

No questions asked.

There’s room at the table. The coffee’s hot. There’s enough. There’s always enough. I saved you a plate.

Text me when you get home?

I didn’t know.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

I didn’t know you didn’t know either.

No one does.

I’ll leave the light on.