[AE.NiNoBilMa] NiNoBilMa 2022: Kindergarten, Week 1
Welcome to the first day of the first week of the first month of #NiNoBilMa 2022: Kindergarten Edition!
If you don't know what #NiNoBilMa is, you can find out more in this newsletter post or Patreon post; they contain the same information laying out what I'm doing and why.
But if you're interested in trying out a quick writing warm-up that simply found its way to you, there's nothing in that post that you need to know if you just keep reading. It explains what we're doing here, but it doesn't list rules (there are none), requirements (we have none), or what you have to do in order to participate (a list of such things would of the word "participate".)
In December, #NiNoBilMa consists of simple, open-ended writing warm-ups, where your prompt consists of a single word. The instruction is to write anything about it. December's #NiNoBilMa theme is Kindergarten, so all of our prompts in December are subjects that a small child entering formal schooling might be learning about in a formal way for the first time.
The prompts this month are all categories. They were chosen with the idea that one would pick (either dealer's choice or by random lots) something within that category to treat as the actual prompt for a session, but in my test runs I sometimes found that I was more inspired to write about the prompt itself, and when that happened, I ran with it. The point of the exercise is to write something, and so if something is written, it's a success.
Each week I will send out two of these prompts, so if you get stuck on one you can try the other, and if you're having a good time churning out words you have options. The prompts were not paired together out of any sense of relationship between them, but there is a method here: I have attempted for each week to pair a fairly concrete thing with a fairly abstract one, under the logic that each of those qualities can make something easier or harder to write about under diferring circumstances.
The prompts for this week are:
1. ANIMALS
2. FEELINGS
The basic exercise (which you may freely adapt, adopt, modify, codify, revise, reverse, ignite, or ignore as you see fit) I will be doing with these throughout the week has the following steps:
1. Make a list of six things relating to each prompt, with the items numbered 1 through 6.
2. Roll a six-sided die and look at the two lists to see which of the two grabs me the most.
3. Set a specific modest or incremental goal for a sprint such as "write 500 words" or "write for 5 minutes without stopping", based on how daunting each one feels at the moment.
4. Write, not necessarily as quickly as possible but in as continuous a fashion as possible, whatever comes to mind from the prompt until the goal is reached.
5. When the goal is reached:
Reset the goal and keep going with another sprint in the same piece of writing if on a roll and/or having having a good time with it.
Wrap it up if it feels like there's a stopping point nearby, and then roll again.
If it was a struggle, attempt another sprint of the same length about another prompt or an unrelated topic
6. Stop writing after three good sprints or two struggle sprints, whichever comes first.
Feel free to adjust any of the numbers to whatever makes sense for you. And anything else about it.
Step number 6 exists to give myself a stopping point and something to work towards. If you decide to follow my example but you fly through three sprints and can't imagine why you would stop, please don't feel like you have to. One of the things I'm working on is stepping away from something to have time to process and reflect, but that might not work for you the way I think it will work for me. I'm trying to find the middle ground between being unable to stop writing because inspiration makes it so easy and being unable to start writing because lack of inspiration has made it impossible.
And that's it. That's the exercise for this week, for you to do as much or as little with as you like. My plan is to do at least one session of sprints daily, plus a separate and more specific exercise. I will be sharing examples of both my work and my more advanced exercises as I go. If you share some of your own work online, please post it to your social media with the tag #NiNoBilMa so others can find it.
Closing Thoughts
Remember that our class motto this month is "No rules, just write!" The point is to write anything. If you don't manage to write anything that you feel is correct, complete, polished, finished, accurate, true, useful, or presentable but you do write anything, you have successfully followed the brief.
What we are working on here is silencing our own inner critic, which for many people also means silencing their inner editor, but we won't tell you not to make corrections on spelling or edit the text or revise and change directions as you go. Those would be rules.
If there are any inhibitions, hang-ups, or other obstacles getting in the way of sitting down and putting words to screen or paper, our goal is to get past them. Nothing we do here is restricted to genre, style, purpose, or equivalent grade level -- if you find it fruitful to try to literally write as a child might write or to recapture a childhood voice, then do so, but please don't get hung up on doing so. We want the opposite of that!
Happy writing!