Rescue Tuesdays #4: Remember code

4 Comments

1. Mike says:
   03/20/2012 03:02:29 AM

   So tell me more about the process Jennifer. Do you pick a page from each book at random, and then pick phrases from each page, or do you scan the books for the most likely looking pages. And do you try to use equal amounts of material from each book?

2. Jen says:
   03/20/2012 11:33:25 PM

   Hi Mike,
   
   I think I'll actually write a post about this!
   
   I use just two books each time. What I've been doing to select random pages is simply to open both books at random. If there's too much dialogue or proper names I'll open another page. I've just started generating random numbers in Excel to select the pages.
   
   Then I transcribe the text of each of the two pages into a Word document. After I've scrambled the text with the online scrambler, I print out the scrambled text and then I select words that jump out at me and write them all out on another blank page. Then I 'rescue' the poem from that jumble!
   
   The process seems to put my head in a space to make some unlikely combinations of words and phrases. I like the routine of it followed by the creative burst.

3. Mike says:
   03/22/2012 03:27:31 AM

   Interesting. I think a blog post about it would be really good. So when you 'scramble' the text, does it keep sentences together, or does it literally scramble all the words, so that all context is gone?

4. Jen says:
   03/22/2012 04:15:56 AM

   No, I set up the text in a column in the scrambler so it jumbles all the words individually. That way I'm not tempted to, or don't unconsciously, use a phrase from the text.
   
   How did 'Words at the Wall' go? I'm sure it was great. And did you go to the slam after?