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Last time, I talked about the power of lists to get us writing about all kinds of things. Lists trick us into writing.\n\nIn her famous TED talk, spoken word poet Sarah Kay invites the audience to make a list. She asks them to think of three things they know to be true. They can be about anything, she says, \u201ctechnology, entertainment, design, your family, what you had for breakfast. The only rule is don\u2019t think too hard.\u201d1\n\nTry it. Today. Right now. Even if you\u2019ve done this before, think of three things you know to be true, about anything.\n\nDon\u2019t think too hard.\nWrite Your Truths\n(I'll pause so you can grab a pen and paper to jot down your three things...go ahead, I'll be here...)\n\nReady...Set...Go.\n\n(Here, I pause again as you write out your three things you know to be true...)\n\nOkay, here are three things I know to be true.\n\n \tTrader Joe\u2019s Butternut Squash Ravioli is worth the 45-minute roundtrip drive.\n \tIf you buy things used, you won\u2019t feel quite so bad when they break.\n \tBooks make excellent companions.\n\nEach of those could be expanded and developed into a miniature memoir. Because the tiny truths you and I express as proverbial-style statements flow out of life experience.\n\nWe could tell each other stories. We could tell about how we concluded the ravioli was worth the drive, how the broken item wasn\u2019t quite such a loss, how the books held us close when we needed companionship.\n\nWe form these tiny truths in the unfolding of our daily lives, so we could reconstruct a scene that led to deeper understanding; we could bring to life a vignette that solidifies a belief.\nWhat do you know to be true?\nSarah Kay says she often tricks the teenagers she works with into writing poetry by using lists because \u201cEveryone can write lists.\u201d The first list she always assigns is \u201c10 Things I Know to Be True.\u201d2\n\nLater today\u2014or now, if you have time\u2014expand your list. Add seven more to make ten things you know to be true.\n\nIf you find your thoughts flowing, beliefs spilling out, one after another, keep going. Make a longer list. Keep adding to the list more and more things you know to be true, reaching deeper and deeper into your wins and losses, your heartaches and joys, your embarrassment, your pain.\nExpand on Your Truth\nPluck a single bullet point\u2014a single truth\u2014from your list of what you know to be true.\n\nLet it be your next writing prompt.\n\nSay more about your truth.\n\nSet a timer for 15 minutes and freewrite about that truth. Remember the events that led to this conclusion. Include the back story. Identify the moment of insight. Reflect on its impact.\n\nVoila. You've composed your micro-memoir, your tiny truth fleshed out.\n\nMaybe it\u2019s for you.\n\nMaybe it\u2019s to share.\n\nYou can use it to form the themes of your work, whether fiction, nonfiction, or poetry.\n\nThese can be adapted and sort of masked to become a scene in fiction; or, they can be polished and developed into a personal essay.\n\nIf one truth alone doesn\u2019t seem to have enough meat to serve up to the world, weave together several to become a longer piece\u2014a collage, a list poem, a winding, free-flowing piece that combines to become a whole.\nSarah Kay's Spoken-Word Truths\nSarah Kay appeared to develop her list of things she knows to be true (or a list quite like it) into a spoken-word poem called \u201cIf I should have a daughter.\u201d3\n\nShe moves artfully through one truth after another: truths she would one day pass on to this potential offspring; or, perhaps, truths Sarah may be reminding herself to hold onto in the meantime.\n\nOr both.\n\nYou could assemble yours into a poem, as well, weaving them into lines, into stanzas, into a free-flowing free-verse poem that moves from one truth to another eventually threading together by theme and thesis.\nMicro-Memoir or #TinyTruth\nYours may be best presented as a kind of micro-memoir. As you construct the scene or scenes from your life that led to your truth,