Look back over your automatic writing - is there a word that leaps out? Choose a word or phrase. You are going to make a dance out of that word. Get up and move in ways that the word suggests. Don’t worry about getting it right – there is no right or wrong way of moving – make the word physical, make the word into a movement, make the movement into a dance. Play around, do silly walks, follow any ideas you have, let one movement suggest the next. This is physical improvisation, play around like a dreamy kid. Watch me dance out the words Lighthouse and Sloping.

Did moving with the word create any new connections? Did getting up and moving give a different energy to your writing?

Now put your original word in the centre of a new page and then scatter around any other words or memories or ideas that came to you while you were dancing.

For me this looked like:-

Lighthouse – tall stiff circular, lights, warning, dalek, exterminate, aggression, pointed movements, daggers

Sloping – Rebecca’s Dad, polio, swaying, swooping, lifting, running fast down hill

Make your original word the title of a short 5 or 6 line poem and use your cluster of words to suggest ideas.

Here are my two poems as examples:-

The Lighthouse Keeper (I cheated and added Keeper – cheat as much as you want!)

He was tall stiff

eyes like daggers.

In his white tower,

saving others

destroying himself.

Sloping

Down the steep slope

I ran as fast as my little legs could.

Daddy swooped me up and swung me round

As I knew he would.

Rebecca’s Dad leant sideways

In his special chair.

Polio sounds like Rolio, sounds like fun.

She says it isn’t.