May 1st Mash-up Post
The monthly mix with response to Q&A on 'Exercises' and poll; re-cap; and an offer for a friend subscription
On the first of each month, I post a newsletter that is indeed a mash-up—a re-cap of the month, a prompt, a craft piece at times, a poll… a taste of what The Unschool for Writers is about. It’s always for all readers.
At the moment, we have the annual Q&A series, a time to focus on your questions. We’ve had two so far, and I’m including the third here as our monthly prompt. A fourth question has been emailed to me, and we’ll look at that in the coming days, and yes… I’m STILL TAKING QUESTIONS.
Email any to me at alison@alisonacheson.com or post right here:
I continue the series until the questions stop.
The third question in our current Q&A series was about prompts/exercises.
The idea from Amy:
I don't have a question but a request for some short writing exercises that get the imagination flowing. For example, there is one where you spend 1 or 2 minutes writing down every word you can think of that begins with a letter. Do the same with another letter. Then spend a few timed minutes making a poem for those lists of words.
~~~
Focusing on “quick”
I love the idea of ‘sound’ that is evoked with using the same letter for the words.
Other couplings could be:
—a short list of a half dozen nouns on one side of page and six verbs on the other — pair them and write
—or a noun/verb/colour — and write a haiku, one in each line
—write such lists/couplings but trade them off with other writers—don’t use the one you came up with! You might trade via email with a writer friend each morning for a week to start the day. Or if you’re feeling blocked, ask another writer to do this with you. Or send along just a couple of random words.
—more on colours: one of my fave exercises for young people was a bowlful of slips of papers with colours written on them: magenta, pink, teal, grey, gold, red… and ask them to write “one beautiful sentence” using the colour. (Their interpretation of “beautiful.”) You can write slips to choose from for yourself.
—describe the personality of a particular day of the week. Or the nature of a particular time of day. (This says more about the observer than the day or time. You can also do this exercise from the viewpoint or voice of a character.)
That poll —
In the April 1 post, I polled about the role of prompts in your writing. Of the responses, a quarter of you said you never do them. After that, the responses were equally divided over doing such exercises purely for fun or to kickstart a project.
These—above—are about “fun” and warming up, though some might serve to kickstart, too.
I’ve written about the principle of the urgency that comes about when we consider the “why now? Why THIS MINUTE?” in a story. So to begin writing with the phrase,
On that day….
—or you might want to start with one of these opening sentences:
The race was over.
Wes froze in his tracks.
I told him not to make a sound.
Susannah was willing to take the blame.
They hadn’t eaten in three days.
I could hardly wait until Monday.
That was when she forgot the words to the song.
He was driving too fast.
I put the key into my pocket.
It was my turn.
Sit down and I’ll tell you the news.
The line was too long.
Time had run out.
Something banged at the window.
The fire lit up the sky.
The door burst open.
At first I didn’t see the stain.
Nothing grew there.
I took the banjo with me.
In the middle of that rainy afternoon, I decided to write the story.
Here’s to “fun” and “starting!”
And the link to the thread on which to share work and ideas.
~~~
Re-cap of April posts
Of course, the usual mixed post, this one looking at the idea of “endarkenment” in Vonnegut’s contribution to writing books, and a link to Canadian markets:
And thoughts on approaches to creating novel endings:
From the archives, I pulled together a collection of “close read” posts:
When creating with multiple POVs, the role of the climax, and crises:
This offer below is for giving a friend an annual gift subscription:
Peace—
Alison