Do You Write?

A lot of people who enjoy different types of literature are also writers.

If you're a writer, too - you've probably wondered a lot about how to make your writing better. Maybe you're not sure how to start a story or what to do with a story once you get to a certain stage.

Here's a little practice activity that might help you with your writing - and it's particularly good for 'starts' and 'beginnings' - just because it will jump start your creative thinking.

All you need to do this practice are:
* a magazine
* a way to time yourself (watch, clock)
* paper (a small or journal so you can save your work)
* pen or pencil

Now here's what you do:

What you're looking for is a person - so make sure you're using a magazine that has people in it - not just landscapes or something.

Just flip through the magazine for 15 seconds. ONLY 15!! The point here is not to be choosy. (If you select things very carefully, you will have selected a picture 'with something in mind' and half the point of the practice is wasted!).

Now on the page, after 15 seconds of flipping, if there is a picture on the page with a person in it - even a drawing of a person - then look at the person for 30 seconds - then put the picture away. This is the person you're going to 'sketch' details about with your words.

(If you stopped on a page without a person - flip pages again for 15 seconds until you find a person...if you found a page with many people on it - select the person closest to the middle of the page - this turns out really interesting results if the picture is small, believe it or not, and you can barely see the person in a 'crowd picture' or 'group picture').

Now that you've 'viewed' the picture for half a minute or so...

START WRITING!

Just for 5 minutes.

Who is the person? What are they thinking, what are they doing, what are they about to do - what did they just finish doing? What colour was their hair - was it natural or did they dye it to look that way? Does the person have children? If the person you found was a child - does he or she have brothers and sisters?

See what you come up with - but STOP WRITING after only 5 minutes.

Then take a look at what you came up with. And find the magazine picture of the person again and do a comparison.

Did you physically describe the person as the person really looked - did you forget some of the physical details and manage to make up some reasonable details of your own? Did you focus more on the person's activities, the person's thoughts, the scenarios that the person was set into?

Let me know how this pratice works out for you.

If you still have trouble generating ideas for writing, just post some comments on the blog and I will find you some other information.

Lord Dunsany (Exerpt from "Fifty One Tales")

THE ASSIGNATION

Fame singing in the highways, and trifling as she sang, with sordid adventurers,
passed the poet by.

And still the poet made for her little chaplets of song, to deck her forehead in the
courts of Time: and still she wore instead the worthless garlands, that boisterous
citizens flung to her in the ways, made out of perishable things.

And after a while whenever these garlands died the poet came to her with his
chaplets of song; and still she laughed at him and wore the worthless wreaths,
though they always died at evening.

And one day in his bitterness the poet rebuked her, and said to her:
"Lovely Fame, even in the highways and the by ways you have not foreborne
to laugh and shout and jest with worthless men, and I have toiled for you and
dreamed of you and you mock me and pass me by."

And Fame turned her back on him and walked away, but in departing she looked
over her shoulder and smiled at him as she had not smiled before, and, almost
speaking in a whisper, said:

"I will meet you in the graveyard at the back of the Workhouse in a hundred years."


by Lord Dunsany


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