Gym Lessons

A surrealist workout for your imagination.

This book gathers 100 metaphorical prompts to stretch and strengthen perception, in the spirit of Surrealism.

These story starters can be used for creative writing: fiction, essays, poetry; for a creative philosophy spark, or a journaling push to dive deeper into yourself.

Gym Lessons are poetic exercises in juggling the world's structures, inner landscapes and emotions. Within four sections - Perception, Presence, Feelings, and Existential Reframe - we will be looking for ways to write new emotional archaeologies and excavate meaning in a disassembled reality. Exercises include: Lifting the blur, making room for your companion star, unlacing your shoes, exhibiting your random fascinations, getting to understand moths and the stickiness levels of sights, manufacturing luck, reframing the mosaic laws that compose you, recycling your most precious body resources, finding a natural rhythm that matches your instincts, crafting moments of absorption and potions of influence.

This is your invitation to play and wrestle with strangeness.