Issue 73: Imagination with Elena Ferrante

We devote each newsletter to one Primal power. This week is Imagination. 

Curious which powers affects you most? Take the diagnostic.

So begins My Brilliant Friend, the first in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet.

 

Your prompt is to imagine two more sentences. 

 

First, what sentence would you write next? How would you lead us further into your version of the story?

 

Second, what sentence might come before this opening line? 

 

The goal isn't to guess what Ferrante wrote, but for you to imagine the start of a different story. 

 

If you like what you write, please share at the link below. 

It sharpens your imagination, which is your brain's ability to invent new plans, to

improvise effectively and to create strategy.

Last month's prompt was the first line from Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. And did you deliver! 

 

Here are a few, chosen at random.

 

“Where has all the time gone? I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. After cleaning the pots and pans, scrubbing the sink, and running the garbage disposal, I felt deserving of rest.”— Eleana from Worthington, Ohio

 

“The surgery went better than anticipated. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. The blood pooled between my feet slowly meanders to catch up with the bullet already in the drain.”— Ken Woodward, Germantown MD. 

 

“I am angry and I need to soothe myself. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. The words flow as easily as the warm water flows on my swollen feet.”
 — Mary from the Coast

 

“Please come home. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. Tears drench the paper, but I blame it on the leaky faucet.”— Nick from Columbus

 

Thank you to all who shared your work.

 

Missed an issue? They're available in our archive.

 

Next week, Emotion.

 

In the meantime, The Big Think published Angus's newest article on the history of generative Ai and what it means for your business today: Why your AI strategy needs guidance from an 82-year-old computer.

Women holding parts of the first four army computers. Credit: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons