In one of today's NYT book reviews there is a line about a Times Literary Supplement assignment one writer received: write an essay of less than 1200 words with no restrictions except it must spill a drop of blood. Try it. (metaphorical blood, please)

I have the great pleasure of working with my friends and last night many of them demonstrated exceptional good-sportmanship in participating in our graduate student event, the Faculty Juvenilia reading. In celebration of the sincerity and intensity of what we believe in our youth...write something in the voice of a fourteen year old. Not smart, ironic, or smartass. Sincere.

Dan Chaon has a new novel out and here is the playlist he listened to as he wrote it. Create a playlist for a piece you haven't written yet. Then go write the piece.

I am a tidy person at heart, but I love pictures like this in which there are a gazillion things to look at. Write a piece of prose in which there are a gazillion things to look at.

Artist Kate Bingaman-Burt makes drawings of everything she buys. Write a mini essay somehow illustrating everything you bought yesterday (whatever day yesterday is for you). And I do mean everything. No cheating.