Wacko Revision

A prompt for working with accidents and chance.

This is a new version of a prompt I’ve used before called whacko revision.

Step one is a scavenger hunt.

Find or make two images, they can be images you clip from something in your home or drawings you’ve made, drawings you make specifically for this activity— only don’t work too hard. Ideally there images that evoke a little something for you, but you’re not too attached to them.

Next, find a text maybe an old journal or a letter if you have such a thing. It could even be an email. Grab whatever calls you, but it might be good if it’s from a different era of your life or if it’s fraught or haunting in some way.

Ask the text: what is your essence? and write down its answer.

Step two: “Revise” the text as if the two images you chose are the illustrations.

A reminder, this is wacko revision so feel free to actually get up to whatever shenanigans you want.

If you want instructions, though here are some options.

-Choose sentences from the text at random and pair them with the images, see where that takes you. You can revise the sentence add more— whatever you like.

-Or just copy the original text via handwriting. You can start at whatever point in the text you want and change and elaborate as you go.

Again you don’t have to try too hard. You’re just kind of listening to the text and how you feel like changing it. There is absolutely no way to do this right or wrong. My main advice is to go slow, listen to what intrigues you and have fun.

Post-script: if you complete this, it might go great or just okay or it might leave you frustrated. (A luxury of the analog world is creative frustration.) You might find, though, that the text starts talking to you over the following weeks and months. It wants to tell you more about its essence. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

This week’s Scrap Heap essay: Analog is the body’s friend

This week’s Joyful Practice podcast: Analog Practice as a bridge between the mind and the natural world