So, usually my writing practice topics are just made up on the spot. Occasionally I’ll do a series – See “Love Is…” (1) through (10).

Sometimes I’ll take a line from another piece of work and go with that. This is a good example: [from “In The Zoo” by Jean Stanford]

Other times I’ll just start with “I feel…” or “I smell…” and write about what’s immediately around me.

And then there are the lists of writing topics. Usually pretty soon after I start a new notebook I’ll have a day where my writing practice is just “write a list of writing topics”, and when I don’t have something in mind I can come to this page, close my eyes, point a finger somewhere, and see what happens. When I’m writing those lists, they might look like this: (these are all from 3/11/2018)

• Write about a tree.
• Write about family trees.
• Write about family obligations.
• Write about family reunions.
• Write about class reunions.
• Write about low-class reunions.
• Write about high-class reunions.
• Write about “putting on airs.”
• Write about “putting on heirs.”
• Write about “putting on hairs.”
• Write about artificiality.
• Write about superficiality.
• Write about boob jobs.
• Why haven’t penis enlargement surgeries received the same kind of market saturation as boob jobs?
• How far would you go to achieve your happiness?
• How much of yourself are you willing to change for someone you love?
• etcetera etcetera …

Obviously I’m not going to write about all of these topics. I probably won’t write about more than 4 or 5 before this notebook is filled and I move to the next one. But the process helps me think of connections, helps to identify associations that might not have been readily present for most people.

So … I want to ask you, readers … What do you think I should write about? Leave a comment, and I’ll use those as prompts in the next couple of weeks. What greatness might we cultivate together?