NONFICTION
BTW: I'm not hot as a nonfiction writer. I'm a subsistence bare-bones truth-teller.
If you are a great essayist or reporter or tech writer, how about some email? Help me help others, etc..?
[email protected]
Writers experience creation anxiety at various stages in their career. Some (guilty) barely allow friends glimpses of finished pieces. Some have sophomore slump, trouble allowing experimentation because their "usual" method worked well for past endeavors.
Others
Hey, performing scares the heebie-jeebies out of me.
I know your pain, your throat-choking frustration and (probably) that steeming self-disgust churning your gastric juices.
I'm guilty of bad writing practices.
Such dead-limb habits destroy creativity.
I offer these exercises with the understanding that they:
can't handle people's expectations
fear friends find reading as exciting as laundry night
discover every approach leads to Cliche Corner.
I had 1 story published. Cousins I've never seen called and asked, "Hey, when's your Pulitzer arriving? Let's grill!"
Like, I don't practice my craft. Sometimes weeks pass.
I perform inflexible "creating my next masterpiece" ceremonies and rituals. I must have instrumental music, water glass, houseshoes.
I devour Tootsie Rolls in the name of high-performance carbs.
I prepare 2 sharpened pencils & a blue pen.
WHY???
I type on a laptop.
If you need help with nonfiction, click below.
NONFICTION
BTW: I'm not hot as a nonfiction writer. I'm a subsistence bare-bones truth-teller.
If you are a great essayist or reporter or tech writer, how about some email? Help me help others, etc..?
[email protected]
MONDAY
Eat in a new restaurant tomorrow
Writers must pay attention, note little, telling moments usually passed over by normal happily-adjusted humans.
WRITE 3 paragraphs, maximum. If you have more, whittle.
Bigger Exercise
TUESDAY
Solving for Unity:
Write a piece with 3 common elements unifying the characters, events, or deep hidden meaning.
Example:
Why the math torture?
or visit any unfamiliar public place for 1 hour.
Why?
Fresh input, fresh output.
Note details (especially details which appeal to your other 4 senses) which set the tone/vibes you receive from the place.
Are you comfortable, tense, tapping the William Tell Overture with cutlery on the tabletop? Why?
Go home, grab your laptop or scribble on a napkin right there between the cheese sticks and the water glass.
Convince your reader to believe/feel/conclude as you did about the place, your waiters, the health score on the wall.
No sweat, eh?
Put a character into an unfamiliar area/situation/setting.
Convey his/her/its discomfort or relaxation, what & how senses learn or misinterpret terrain.
Keep it under a page and focus on the character's interior.
Open a math book. Work 1 problem. (Pre-algebra or lower is fine.) Work another. One more =??? Great!
What's an "element?"
Elements are common threads or themes minnowing through your writing. Dialect, a preferred color, a background of autumn trees at every major turning point in the tale, are examples.
Pretend your character's a jazz trumpeter. Audio descriptions would naturally, believably spring his/her point of view. Sounds, therefore, appear throughout the fiction piece.
Don't like 3? Use an answer from a math problem you solved.
Work both sides of your brain for maximum wattage, baby.
Jump start your creativity with "just the facts, ma'am."
Quibbling Quotes: Dialogue Exercise
Convey personalities concisely with spoken words.
Sounds simple, but it ain't!
Imagine a bickering couple: parent/child, siblings, ex-lovers, even the 2 Muppet geezers.
Let them fight with opposing quotes. Keep each speaker's philosophy consistent.
Double check that the quotes parry each other.
Decide what they're arguing about, too, and make it your title.
Example:
THURSDAY
Roasts:
Try your own! Then write a brief story to fill in or explain either the roast's origin, who the roaster is, or why the roastee is the topic of conversation.
FRIDAY
The Book of Laws by Harold Faber presents "a ruefully witty compendium of the rules that Really govern your life."
Write one true, sad, or funny (all 3'd be great) law. Draw from your own life or from an altered reality.
SATURDAY
CONFLICTED CELEBRANTS
Create your own holiday. Is it state, national, family-wide?
Write 2 paragraphs & describe when/what/why your holiday was threatened or cancelled altogether.
This exercise addresses an "epic" history of your alternate or almost-now reality. readers enjoy knowing social norms within which a character operates or struggles.
Analyze the origins of your favorite/most loathed holiday. What zany antics do you pull?
1) A penny saved, a penny earned. vs You can't take it with you!
2) Early to bed, early... vs Make hay while...
NOT FOLLOWED BY
3) As merry as the day is long. vs Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
Roasts are friendly tributes disguised as insults.
Example: (For radio personality) Sometimes he's thoughtless. Never speechless, just thoughtless.
Example: Her aim improved once she imagined the target as her mother-in-law.
Example: He's so opinionated, he won't even listen to both sides of a cassette.
Example: Finnegan's Law=The farther away the future is, the better it looks. (Quoted in Organic Gardening, June 1978.)
Example: Lec's Immutable Law=The first requisite for immortality is death. (Stanislaw J. Lec, quoted in Peter's Quotations, 1977.)
Avoid stereotyped quotes from a "type" of character. (Don't have a streetwise kid mutter, greed is good.)
Also consider what source will publish your law. Are you Ladies Home Journal material or Kafka Files?
When, where, why, how: all must be answered in 1 paragraph.
How long is optional info. Be serious, silly, spiritual or stupetifying. Include costumes, curators/founders, any & all special observances.
Example:
Alabama vs Auburn football: paint my body crimson & wear my elephant ear headband
"Every writer finds himself/herself stymied for ideas on how to break free from that black pit of despair called writer's block. Here are some tips on how to get out of that rut and kindle your imagination. Check out SUGGESTIONS FOR OVERCOMING WRITER'S BLOCK at
WRITERS' RESOURCES ON THE WEB"
