Planet Noodle

A while back, Richard Wagner and I started an environmental news audio podcast called Planet Home. Grad school robbed us of any free time and we were forced to give up after recording a handful of episodes, but I have plans to pick up this thread again one day soon. I plan to edit and release the best of the material we've recorded, and then check with Richard to see if he's into continuing the show. I'll keep you posted.

While in grad school, both Richard and I took a course called "Environmental Writing" led by Fred Taylor. It was a great class that helped me to find my voice as a writer, and to identify a writing process that works well for me. One of the requirements of the class was to keep a daily journal in which we could write whatever we wanted so long as we wrote something. One of my favorite journal activities was a subclass of free writing that I've come to call "noodling" or "noodles". It's nearly total free association, with a sprinkling of steering and editing. Following is an excerpt of a raw noodle:

malleable parable song cast Carlotta Maracino cherries Horn of Plenty David caramel terrible parlor talk nap time four sanguine elephant tusk musk ox box of rocks top of the heap sleep well mellow tell nobody ailing health self-perpetuated myth slip and slide ride on a ship stock tip flip your lid hankering spanky hope cellophane

I may post a few more of these in the future. Maybe I'll even make one up on the spot. It sort of reminds me of the message body of certain types of spam, but it's more alliterative and less pornographic.