Zelda's Inferno exercise: timed writing from phrases selected from the New York Times:
1) the radius of movement
anchored at one point, the here-now, the mind swings an arc, like a geometry student's compass constructing a perpendicular bisector, or like a dog running at the end of a rope tied to a tree.
2) his direct contribution
contributing to the world around us, we each support the other, like two stones leaning to make an arch. I have heard that it takes dozens of support personnel to put one combat soldier on the battlefield. The point of the spear gets all the glory but would be useless without the shaft. There is no one - no one - who does not make a contribution. But only the master storytellers know this, and so we get story after story about spearpoints, we build a mythology in which the rest of us are hear only to support the occasional "great man".
3) spirit, exuberance, and enormous enthusiasm
the hollow men, devoid of spirit, exuberance, or enthusiasm, seeking to fill the void with beer or football or pornography or TV or religion or something, anything, but it's like trying to fill a sieve with water, like patching a hole in your wall with ice, hungry ghosts
4) to get only modest amounts of money
sold their souls in expectation of vast amounts of riches, but were surprised to get only modest amounts of money, the market in human souls was glutted, a buyers market, as men and women behaved more and more basely, spiritual hyperinflation, until it took a wheelbarrow full of souls to buy a loaf of bread, until the system collapses and we stop trading souls for goods and services but farm them for our own sustenance
5) tumble washed for exceptional softness
until we've been washed clean, broken in, tumbled soft, knocking against each other until worn smooth like river rocks, getting the sharp edges knocked off so that our soft smooth shiny heart becomes exposed, until we show that true face from before our parents were born