Maps and Journeys Prompts and Exercises

Writer Friends:

Below are the prompts and exercises I ran the students through for the Maps and Journeys writing workshop I taught in Astoria over the weekend. They produced some remarkable writing and discussions. Use them as you see fit on whatever journey you are on these days, and whatever type of map you consult.

Journey Survey

  1. What is the difference between a trip and a journey?
  2. What is the best mode of transportation for a journey?
  3. What are the essentials a person needs to take along on a journey?
  4. Is the best journey taken alone or with friends or family?
  5. What is the best journey I have taken in my life so far?
  6. Describe the journey I took through childhood and/or adolescence.
  7. What is the worst journey I have taken in my life so far?
  8. When does the journey end?
  9. What do you believe is the greatest human journey ever taken?
  10. What is the greatest human journey that still needs to be taken?
  11. If you could journey into the past, where would you go?
  12. What is the one great journey you hope to make in your life?
  13. Journey a great rock band—yes or no?
  14. What sort of journey has the advent of the Internet encouraged or discouraged?
  15. What inward journey do you want/need to make? What do you hope to discover?
  16. How do we begin an American journey toward justice?
  17. What’s the more interesting story: person goes on a journey? Or person on a journey comes into town?

Map Exercises/prompts

  1. Draw a map of your state from memory.

  2. Draw a map of the United States/world from memory.

  3. Draw a better (more just) map of your state or country or world.

  4. Draw a map of an undiscovered country.

  5. Draw a secret treasure map where X marks the spot.

  6. What can’t a map tell you?

  7. Are you a paper map or Google map person? Why?

  8. When is the time to throw away the map?

  9. What is a special map in your life?

Journey Quotes

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases / William Hazlitt

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. / Lao Tzu

A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles / Tim Cahill

The journey is the reward. / Chinese proverb

The only journey is the one within. / Rainer Maria Rilke

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

Confucius

The longest journey a man must take is the eighteen inches from his head to his heart

Chinese proverb

I tramp a perpetual journey. / Walt Whitman

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. John Steinbeck

The journey for women, no matter what venue it is – politics, business, film – it’s, it’s a long journey. Kathryn Bigelow

OUR journey had advanced;

Our feet were almost come

To that odd fork in Being’s road,

Eternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe,

Our feet reluctant led.

Before were cities, but between,

The forest of the dead.

Retreat was out of hope,—

Behind, a sealed route,

Eternity’s white flag before,

And God at every gate.

Emily Dickinson