### This is one of the [[assignments for fiction]] you can do. (T1: Communication) You’re going to want to define what a “page” is. When I do this, I use a regular spiral notebook or composition book, and one page equals one handwritten page. But you’re free to choose your own medium and set your own boundaries. For each session, you write one page. But the fun thing is, it’s p. 192 out of some imagined book — a different book each time. To get inspiration, go to a library or bookstore or your own shelves, and open some books to p. 192. Most of the ones I’ve looked at (and therefore most of the ones I’ve written) start (and end) in the middle of a sentence or paragraph. But not always. Sometimes you might luck out and land on the first or last page of a chapter or section. Mix it up. Embrace the randomness. This is an excellent way, by the way, to respond to the urge, if you get the urge, to [[animate the subtext]]. It feels liberating, because you’re interacting with “a” book instead of “the” book, so there’s no need to get hung up on perfection. Obviously the number of your phantom page doesn’t have to be 192. You can use whatever page number you want, or dispense with enumeration altogether. For some reason, I just started thinking of it as “every page is p. 192” and that sounds catchy to me, so that’s what I’m calling this assignment. If you choose this lil’ assignment, I recommend doing it waaaaay more than once. At this moment, as I’m typing this description, I’ve been doing it pretty much every day for a few weeks. I am looking forward to looking back later at the collection of “unrelated” pages — how much you want to bet there will be some interesting connections, cool stuff found, maybe some kind of message I’m subconsciously sending to myself? :) Consider varying your random pages — different styles, genres, POV, voice, etc. You could extend this assignment by choosing one or more of your random pages to make into something else. A story, a story collection, a novella, whatever. (But don’t tell the liberated part of your brain that you’re planning to do that — such foreknowledge might ruin the effect!) ---- > most exquisitely, your highness.” > > The hall erupted with laughter. Moments later, the mountain erupted with magma. > > <div style="text-align: center;"> > <h4>✧✦✧</h4> > <h5>13</h5> > </div> > In 1---, when the ruin was discovered, mothers were sitting with children, goats were in the yard, books were open to page 192. Memories were solidified, literally, inscrutable though obvious. Times moves fastest when it is frozen: an eternity in an instant. The peace of unearned death. The redemption of randomness. The dreamless sleep of centuries awakens something in those who visit. Unsettles, disquiets those of us unlucky enough still to have to deal with motion, decisions, the narrow range of temperatures required by flesh and