What to do with My Phrases and Snippets
Going back to just after I graduated grad school, when I started writing poetry (as I had time to think a little more freely), I started keeping phases and snippets. Some were in notebooks and some in text notes on my computer. Often these were things that would pop to mind and wouldn’t clear my head until I captured them. Some turned into poems (a sliver of what I wrote is on my Poetry :: vanderwal.net page). Some turned into short stories that picked up a few of the phrases and snippets, some of these were rather micro-short stories or scenes (I enjoy the output of the scenes and dialog).
Over the years I tried to pull the snippets that I hadn’t used into digital notes. Up until around 2010 I had many different note apps and each had a snippets note. In the last two to five years I’ve been pulling them into a handful of notes. But, I have taken a note I stared around 2008 with phrases and snippets and that is my live phrases and snippets note. When something pops into my head I tuck it in there. In Obsidian I keep that note open in a panel so it is easy to slide to and read through or jot something down.
When I read through them I often chuckle or laugh, and some get me thinking more deeply. Some have turned into scenes again and short pieces, which I also haven’t shared.
The phrases and snippets are brain prompts and idea fodder for creativity. Some are turns of phrase, some playful word play, others are snarky, some play with time and reality shifts, and others are just prompts for “tell a story about this”. I have over 200 of these and for a long time I’ve thought of wanting to keep them to myself for my use. But, lately I’m really curious what someone would do with the snippet as most can be taken in many different directions.
I’ve thought about a challenge or carnival a month for a phrase or snippet to see what comes back. Also thought about a postcard subscription service with a phrase or snippet a month (more than a few of the items on a postcard could get a knock at my door), but also thinking of these routing openly through the mail service for anybody to read and get their mind going in a different fun direction.
I have also considered just making them public on a page, or a page each.
What Would You Do?
If given the following snippets, what would you do with them?
“I am going to need to go to an AA meeting, as I need to understand how to develop a drinking problem, as I think that is the only way to get through this.”
Oh, I don’t cook I just make leftovers
The plague of the minor maladies
They had all the traits of being a non-conformist
beige ficus genre
I lost my site’s 404 page, which seems a little more than ironic
candle lit dinners in the McDonalds parking lot