Writing exercise: doors

Warm up: walking

Think of a walk you take often, possibly every day. In can be indoors, such as the walk between your bedroom and kitchen or outside, maybe the walk between home and a friend’s house.

Think about how that walk changes depending on the time of day, or time of year. Does it change depending on how you’re feeling? Do you notice more or less, take a different route, take your time or hurry?

Brainstorm: crossing borders

Spend a few minutes listing all the borders you cross in that walk, whether it’s crossing the threshold of a room, or crossing roads. Even the shifts between paths in a park can be important, because of the plantlife, or views, or direction you’re facing.

Map these shifts out across a piece of paper, or on a rough drawing of that walk.

Start writing

• Write about a door that has an impact in your life. It can be one you go through every day, or want to go through at some point. What about that door mattered or matters?
• Write about the act of going through a door. What can you see from one side or the other? Do you ever look back? How do you get from one side to another?
• Write about all the doors you go through on an average day. How do those doors punctuate your day, and how do they set the tempo for what is coming?