Find the 9th book on your bookshelf (or inside ibooks, or on your Kindle). Open it to page 9 (or if the book begins on page 14, just count up 9 pages to pg. 23, for example). Read the 9th sentence on the page. Begin a poem or short post that begins with that sentence and limit the length to 9 lines.

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Feel free to cheat because as I found the 9th page, say, of Dorie Greenspan’s Dorie’s Cookies, I landed in the acknowledgment section, where she listed people by name. I eventually landed on a line from Richard Yates’s “Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired.”

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It must have been a bad disappointment, and I imagine she tried to make up for it by planning the triumphant way she’d tell us about it when she got home. –Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired by Richard Yates

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It must have been a bad disappointment, and I imagine she tried to make up for it by planning the triumphant way she’d tell us about it when she got home. I mean, she knew we’d ask for comment; everyone wants our “fearless girl” on the record. I kept telling her to enjoy it while it lasts, keep level-headed, plant her feet on the ground, ’cause of course she’d be asked to leave—albeit in sugar-rolled congratulatory language, a.k.a. bullshit, about what a hoo-ha impact she’s made in such a short time. All this “symbol of standing up to fear, standing up to power, being able to find in yourself the strength to do what’s right,” them’s mighty grand words when you’re kickin’ the girl to the curb come “early 2018.” Now, she’s gonna come home all sing-song about how thankful she is for the experience; girl’s been watching too much Top Chef, that’s what.  Bulls don’t win bullfights; people do. Then quit talkin’ ’bout sendin’ my baby home.

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Not my best work. Try not to judge whatever you turn out, as it’s more about exercising your writing muscles and thinking outside your easy win-zone than about the end result. You’re creating new neuron-pathways by trying something new!