1) Only eat foods with beautiful names. (For example, bhindi masala and veal scaloppine.)
2) Spend five minutes a day not writing. (During this interval, you must not write. Gradually increase the time to 23 hours.)
3) Read the phone book.
4) Gaze at the water in a swimming pool. Notice the beguiling arrays of light.
5) Listen to crickets.
6) Try to become smarter.
7) Buy a beautiful notebook and give it away.
8) Talk to moths.
9) Make lists. (List your favorite submarines, Disco songs, types of mud, French composers, etc.)
10) Start a blog. (In it, write your most inane thoughts. Don’t worry that no one reads it. No one reads any blogs.)
11) Go to Civil War reenactments.
12) Sit by the ocean and wait for the tide to come in. (If the tide is in, wait for it to recede.)
13) Never call yourself a writer. Instead, refer to yourself as a "humanitarian poker player."
14) Make dates with people you know will stand you up. While being stood up, look around you carefully. Take notes. Interview other people who have been stood up. Write a book: Tales of the Stood-up.
15) Spend a day whispering.
16) Spend a day screaming.
17) Listen to women hammering. (Or men. Go to a construction site where many workers are hammering. Listen.)
18) Build a treehouse.
19) Write graffiti.
20) Go to a rodeo.
21) Read the King James Bible. (If you hate religion, read Dr. Seuss.)
22) Try to guess everyone’s astrological sign.
23) Argue with your dentist about politics.
24) Find a terrible poem and memorize it. Ask, at your next dinner party, "Would you like to hear a terrible poem?" — then recite it.
25) Read gossip magazines. Try to understand what motivates Nicole Kidman.
26) Follow a firetruck and watch the fire.
27) Study different kinds of lollipops. (Not online; in real life.)
28) Talk to strangers. (Here’s a good opening line: "You and I have a lot in common; we’re both strangers!")
29) Study Marxism. Even if it hurts.
30) Join a country-western band.
31) Notice when people are lying to you. (This may occur all day.)
32) Guess what music people are listening to on their iPods.
33) Search for a perfect writing master. (Try to find an ancient woman sitting atop a mountain who can teach you everything about writing. Such a person may not exist, but the search is helpful.)
34) Learn ventriloquism.
35) Fight for the poor & the oppressed.
36) Try to draw Spiderman.