Eariler this week, we kicked off our new Meetup group, Indy WordLab, at the Earth House Collective in downtown Indianapolis. We were joined by 25 writers looking to experiment with their writing and try something different, and the whole shindig was a huge success. For the sake of our members (we call them Word Scientists) and for anyone who wasn’t able to make it out, we decided to post our prompt from the evening here on our blog.

This month’s theme was Fact vs. Perception. We heard from poet Kevin McKelvey and experimented with writing about familiar stories not from the facts, but from our perceptions of them.

1. History or Myth - You must include history or myth in some way. Maybe it’s a family story, or something from classical mythology. Maybe it’s an era of history you’ve always been interested in. This will form the base of our experiment.

2. Facts – Write down a list of basic facts surrounding the story you want to tell.

3. Perceptions – Next to that, write down a list of your perceptions of these facts – what do they mean to you? How do they make you feel?

4. Word List - Write a list of obvious words associated with this story. Many of your words can probably be found your list of facts.

Avoid – Don’t use any of the words in your list. Instead, write from your perceptions of the story and avoid relying on any meaning those obvious words might carry.

If you get a chance to try this experiment out for yourself, we’d love to hear about it! Drop a link in the comments below. Also, head over to the Indy WordLab page on Meetup.com or join us on Facebook to meet other Word Scientists, share your work, and RSVP for upcoming WordLab events.