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Path to Creativity

Writing Prompt: Mirror Mirror

By Charity Hume on February 19, 2014 in Art, Film, Literature, Poetry, POPULAR, Theatre

2

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For this week’s writing prompt, “Mirror Mirror”:

Painters of self portraits look long and hard at their own reflections, attempting to accurately portray the changing reality each day brings to the human face.  No two portraits are ever alike. When examined chronologically, these paintings express a profound evolution of artistic vision.  Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Chuck Close, Warhol, and countless others, explored their artistic message by returning again and again to the powerful exercise of creating self portraits.

The Self Portrait Exercise:

Give yourself time to study your reflection in a mirror. Take a notebook along to record the ideas and observations that pass through your mind as you look. Pretend you are having a conversation with a guest and listen to what “your reflection” has to say. How are you doing?  What is going on? What is on your mind? Who are you? What do you see? You can have this internal conversation daily. What do you most hope you could do today and why? Is it possible to make a few minutes of time for it today?  Write down your deepest hope for the day.  This exercise can have surprising results, because by articulating your desires, you will be more able to recognize the many opportunities that present themselves throughout the day.  Doors will open.

"Marion," by Guy Rose, courtesy of Wikipaintings

“Marion,” by Guy Rose, courtesy of Wikipaintings

 

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TagsCharity Humecreative writingmirror mirrorwriting prompt

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About the author

Charity Hume

Charity Hume

Website

Charity Hume is a writer and teacher who lives and works in Los Angeles. A former director of The NYU Creative Writing Program, she is the author of The Path to Creativity: Creative Writing Exercises to Awaken the Artist Within and The Wisdom in the Room: A Teacher's Guide, available on her website, and at Amazon, Kindle, and Createspace.

  • Angelica Guillen

    backline
    unending
    eden’s negra
    eros’s bone
    textured

    N
    algas
    in rising
    black
    belly
    legging to the front

    movement of
    n algas
    sweet
    beautiful I

    today’s writing prompt = me to me

    c 2014, vika g, all rights reserved

  • John Karrys

    I tried this exercise two times. Once in the morning and the other late last night. What I rediscovered was really interesting and I’d like to share it. My deepest hope for a long time is for there to be honest, transparent continuity between who I am on the inside and how I present myself to the world. It’s integrity through and through. But who I was ten years ago, five, one, and last week isn’t exactly the same. I discover many blind spots all the time. Kathryn Schulz’s wonderful book On Being Wrong, her Ted Talks really doesn’t do it service, comes to mind and it gives me some comfort of not feeling all alone with this internal struggle between certainty and skepticism.
    My odyssey, my search for home or my place in this crazy universe, has been one Iliad after another. But, amazingly, who I want to be hasn’t essentially changed. The way I articulate it has. I’ve grown but I haven’t changed. I want to be good and have moral courage all of the time not only when it is contextually safe to do so. Speak up firmly when I see someone forgetting wrong from right.
    I want to listen better to my wife and quickly learn how to laugh and be present and in the moment as she is. This will make a better man, a better person. It’s not right to eat wonderfully prepared food and have my mind on anything else but enjoying that meal, that conversation, that moment, as much as I can. I used to foolishly think that the pursuit of happiness was going for the touchdown, the home run, or an equivalent status prize. The win versus the loss. Now, I try to figure out how many base hit happiness moments I can make, create, or I let go and just welcome those bottom of the ninth surprises that can come at any moment.
    Discovering Renaissances means charging ahead on those non linear odysseys but intuitively staying true to who I am.

    Great exercise! It’s exactly what I needed.

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