In “Short Assignments” by Anne Lamott, she talks about the “short assignment” that she has to do. She brings up ideas such as “writing that one paragraph that sets the story in my hometown, in the late fifties, when the trains were still running” and seeing things through a “one-inch picture frame”, and also of “painting a picture of it, in words, on my word processor.” Another idea she brings up is writing about “the main character the very first time we meet her, when she first walks out the front door and onto the porch.”
The author uses lots of different scenarios in one scenario to talk about her process of writing. She moves from one scenario to another, and if you’re someone who is able to imagine stories in your head from reading descriptions, then that’s exactly how you would describe this. She describes herself as a dog at one point, and then as a main character of a story, and then thinking about things that make her angry, and things that she should possibly do instead of write. She also uses some jokes here and there to add some enlightenment to the mood, like joking about relatives being creepy and having coppery breath.
If I were to use any of the ideas she brought up, I would use the “painting a picture of it in words” and “writing about the main character when we first see her” for my writing. I feel like I already do these things that she brought up, but I feel like I could do them more. I sometimes focus on more detailed stuff of stories, like scenery or technical details, rather than characters, which is something I think I could improve on.