“Metaphor is the raw uranium of writing.”

– Alvin Knox

Tools:

• Willingness to exercise a fluid mindset.

• Willingness to send your critic to tea.

• Twenty minutes (ideally)

Choose a primary element to approach: Anything!

1. Describe it concretely:

• Use intricate detail. Shrink down inside each detail and describe it, shrinking deeper down in further detail.

• Use all your senses. If you do not know what the primary element smells like, make it up.

• Be inventive!

2. Record your first physical encounter with the primary element.

• Observe the encounter omnisciently.

• Enter slow motion and engage all your physical senses.

• Do not write about your emotional state or response.

• Consider: Where, When, the Season, the Weather, the Event, your Company, What preceded the encounter with your primary object.

• How did you physically feel in the moment?

3. Recall a recent encounter with the primary object.

• Describe it physically.

• But allow an element of personal thought: How do you deal with the object? How do you respond?

4. Give the primary element a form capable of sentient thought, a form you can address and expect it to understand.