Fire

Campfire's burning. Draw nearer.

To the warmth? Together with my friends. Draw nearer. Is it too warm for comfort?

You see the wood burning. Pretty colours. Red, orange, yellow.

Sparks fly. Heat in your face. Look up and see the faces around you. Are they friendly, happy, soulful, sad.

What about the shadows that dance around them. Are they friendly, frightful, fearful.

Now look at the faces again.
Am I with friends?

Written during the "Getting beyond the editor within" workshop conducted by Jacqueline Le Sueur at the Singapore Sun Festival.

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It's essentially a creative writing workshop. In the first writing exercise, Jacqueline gave us each a word and we had three minutes to write something, anything, about the word we were given. I got the word "fire". Some other words received by others include "water", "earth", "rabbit".

I learnt that the technique that I applied during this exercise is what writers call "free writing". Free writing is an exercise in which you write quickly off the top of your head with no judgment intended. It is useful, on occasion, for getting a writing project started, but it is also the most common warm up exercise used by professional writers.