reblogging nearsightedmonkey:

“People have been looking for the timing videos for Lynda Barry’s Writing the Unthinkable excercises. Here is the one for seven and a half minutes worth of writing.

OK LET’S GO! BUT BEFORE YOU START THE VIDEO….. STEP ONE:

First write ten nouns on ten little pieces of paper. Any nouns will do! Cake! Fire! Teeth! Ticket! Etc!

Number a page from one to ten

Relax your whole body from top to bottom and say the alphabet to yourself or something else you have memorized and think back to early days in your life….

turn over one of the pieces of paper and write down the first ten images… sort of like snapshots…. that come to you from that word

Read the list over

Circle one that seems vivid or has trouble in it and write it on a clean sheet of paper like it was a title to a story and then draw a big X on the page.

NOW start the video.”