This small book contains prompts for two-page exercises that Abigail Thomas, author of fiction and memoirs, assigned in writing workshops. They were compiled by her students. Use them if you need a side door into work that is too daunting to enter from the front. Use them to write something absurd or profound or to surprise yourself. Don’t worry if what you write turns out to be a little less or a lot more than two pages. That would be missing the point.