Lucy Ives's 'Three Six Five' Offers Radical Writing Prompts

Lucy Ives's new book "three six five: prompts, acts, divinations (an inexhaustible compendium for writing)" presents 365 writing exercises with no right answer, continuing her exploration of writing as a subject. Published by Siglio, the book resembles a devotional text with gradient cover, dyed page edges, and line drawings by Nick Mauss. Ives draws on the tradition of Yoko Ono's Fluxus-coded "Grapefruit" (1964). The prompts range from reviewing an imaginary book to writing a thirty-page sentence. Ives's work includes over a dozen books of poetry, fiction, and essays, including the 2019 novel "Loudermilk: Or, The Real Poet; Or, The Origin of the World" set in a fictional MFA program. Her 2021 story "The Care Bears Find and Kill God" appears in her collection. Ives has been writing since her 2009 debut chapbook "My Thousand Novel." The article also discusses writing coaches like Lydia Davis, whose 2013 essay "Thirty Recommendations for Good Writing Habits" advises to "work on your character," and George Saunders, who speaks of a "mind greater than the one I'm talking to you with." Leslie Dick's 2018 essay "Soft Talk: Thoughts on Critique" is referenced. Other writing guides mentioned include Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style," William Zinsser's "On Writing Well," Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird," and Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way." The article appears in The New Yorker.