A Self Portrait

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting: Mon, 5 Aug 1996 00:43:14 EDT

While we were visiting Japan recently, we had dinner with a friend who has been painting for a short time (two years?). One of the exercises that her teacher posed is to do a self-portrait on a yearly basis.

So, that's this week's late Friday exercise.

Write a self portrait piece. It can be poetry, prose, or other whimsey at your disposal, but think about revealing yourself in the piece. It can be simply description, a short but pungent scene, or the lush imagination of the romantic visionary. But it should be you!

Do you really think your soul winks like that in the shower?

Or does your response to a simple traffic ticket show you at your beast?

Think about it. Put yourself in your words.

Short start?

I never imagined myself like that.

But someone did.

Tell Me About...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:15:48 EDT

Let me explain the basic situation, and then we'll consider if you need anything else to get started.

Character A (please feel free to give them a better name, one that wrings connections from your nerves) has experienced something. It may be recent, it may be old, but they know what it feels like.

Character B is the innocent. They don't know what it is like. But they would like to.

So A and B have a dialogue, a discussion. A is trying to explain to B just what it is like. They shall use metaphor, implication, and any other methods that spring to mind...just don't use baseball bats to get your point across, okay?

Do you need more? How about this?

Pick a number from one to six. That's

1. Winning a gold medal
2. Losing a sporting event
3. Having someone you know die
4. Having an unusual sexual adventure
5. Having a particular physical problem (boil? appendix? sprain? impacted wisdom teeth? take your pick, and call a doctor in the morning, okay?)
6. Being robbed (or other crime against person, at your description)

Okay? There's an experience. You are welcome to pick an experience of your own, but remember--one of the characters has no knowledge of what it is really like, while the other is far too well aware of the gritty reality.

So, put these two in a situation -- perhaps having coffee? or sitting in a car going to work together? whatever you like -- and walk through that education, that learning, that change in how they percieve the world and themself...

Did I hear someone mutter something about "What point of view?"

Third, limited? I suggest staying out of their heads for this, just be a camera floating nearby, documenting the strain of trying to tell someone else what it really feels like to have a hernia.

If you insist on first person, do one, then rewrite it from the other. Try starting with the innocent.

Short Start?

"I really haven't done this before, you know. Do you, well, do you have any advice?" he said, and stirred his tea.

Write!