Nostalgia Exercise for Writers

Step 1: Make a list of:

  • A song that reminds you of your childhood
  • A song that reminds you of first love
  • A song that you love against your will.
  • A song you’ve been listening to lately
  • A song that reminds you of someone special

Choose one song off the list, and play it.

As you listen, write down, the images, emotions, and sensations it elicits for you.

Now, choose just one of the images, or memories the song called up. Write it as a scene. [10 minutes]

When you’ve completed the scene, keep writing, using the below sentences as a kind of MadLib. Fill in the blanks, and if you can, keep going.

If you’d asked me then about that song, I would’ve said ____________. It was the [name the season] that we [something significant that happened that season either personally or universally]. We were [adjective] and we didn’t even know it. Yet when we heard that song, we ____________.