Selected Scenes...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: April 8, 1995

Roll a die. Pick one of the following. Dress it up, add details, and write up the marvelous little tidbit of prose for our delight and wonder! Try to avoid the saturated fats when deep-frying your writing...

1. A lighthearted scene of flirtation as witnessed by two old women in the background.
2. A lusty but graceful masquerade in a subdued tone.
3. An afternoon gathering of aristocrats practicing their artificial manners on each other, indulging in gossip and frivolous chatter.
4. A group of robbers or smugglers getting ready for an expedition.
5. A tragically futile duel indulged in for passion.
6. The rude and grotesque gathering of four monstrous clergy to practice their vices and ruses.

These scenes brought to you from a discarded photocopy of a page describing various classical dances...

(hey, I could have suggested you describe love potion number na-e-a-ine!)

keep writing!

That Old Box...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: Mon, 3 Apr 1995 23:02:26 EDT

Yo! We're back, more or less, and I'm ready to roll out some words.

So, moving right along the information highway, let's try this. It's based on one of them thar country songs that I heard while we were rolling down a real highway (Route 60, in the Apache Reservation, near Salt River Canyon, if you want to be precise. Talk about beautiful country!)

1. Pick two (or more) characters. Work out their relationship(s) up to this time. (relatives are fairly easy, others can be good too.)

2. Pick one of the characters to die. Suddenly or peacefully, young or old, the ways and means are up to you.

3. The other character(s) finds (gets by mail, stumbles over in a field, take your pick) a box that belonged to the recently deceased.

4. Your turn! Write up the scene... Finding/getting the box. Realizing what it is. Opening it. What's inside--and how does this "collection" change the character's beliefs and attitudes toward the deceased?

Unpacking a box--make us see, hear, smell, feel the contents of the box, and the emotional shakeup as the character(s) discover that the deceased really was...

Write!

Pumping Games! Building Blocks!

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: March 17, 1995

(being a mixed swizzle from the blender full of hastily scanned email and other fugitive bits escaping from our REENGINEERING meetings--excuse me, was that spelled reorganization or restructuring or... not?)

on the creative side of the court, we have pink blobs floating and primping...they have escaped the rigid cages and are ready to ROAR!

on the logical, analytical side of the court, we have those categories, those wonderful cages, lines, charts, and all the other restraints...ready for a little S&M practice? well, at least annually retentive or otherwise holding back the flow...

and in the middle--

jacks? cards? dice? (note: this is plural, even though almost any die you pick up has more sides than that...)

and other paraphenalia?

YES! one of the places where rules and romping, where referees and players, where logic and creativity combine and conspire in a fruit of the loom uniform...

is in games.

when you are playing, it's a good idea to have some rules.

but...it's just a game. while you may get intense, excited, jump up and down in your seat and throw your drink at the referee involved--it isn't anything serious. so you can have fun, you can take chances, you can even lose--and feel good about it!

(Make one up! what the heck, it's only a game, right? then post it to the list and see who plays... par diablo example...)

so, let's see...

1. write three sentences (a short paragraph). steal one from someone if you need to.

2. get your dictionary down and flip pages. pick the first noun from the bottom on the right-hand page. pick the first verb from the top on the left-hand page. repeat twice (so you have three nouns, three verbs--toss with some other parts of speech if you like, but make sure you have those six!)

3. take the first sentence. remove a verb and replace with the first random verb. remove the last noun in the sentence and replace with the first random noun.

4. do this for all three sentences.

5. read your randomized "seed" aloud. think about what might have led up to this. think what might happen as a result. think about the feelings of the characters trapped in this situation...

and WRITE!

der grinding block

Let's See . . .

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

[Off the topic, but . . . I'm feeling the weight of those feet of clay today.

Had an encounter with academic bureaucracy, and while they all seem to feel that it has worked out well, spending a half-hour on the phone and having to explain repeatedly to people that being stupid was not going to make me go away is irritating, to say the least.

(well, I put it more politely - you tell me I have to have A to get B, but I can't have A until I produce B - this is a Catch-22, folks, can you help me fix it? which was fallacious, since I had not caused the problem nor could I fix it, but I've noticed that people are more likely to help me fix it than they are to admit that they GOOFED! And in the end, they figured out a way to get me C, thus perhaps getting me B by next week, which may, in due time, allow me to do A! Which I thought was the point of the whole exercise in futility, but :-)

Bless the idjits, for they shall be with us always. Right.]

Anyway, let's ignore that. How about a writing exercise?

Hum, perhaps, oh, let's see . . .

Why not?

[get on your marks]

Pick a character. You know the kind, the sort of person who . . . well, sure, that one.

Okay? Now what do they want to achieve? Come on, you know. They want to get to the other side of town, pick up their suit from the cleaners, plant a colony on Mars, invent the next great toothpaste flavor? Whatever, get it clear in your mind. You might even like to make a list of the steps they are taking to get there.

[get set]

Now roll your die. Pick a number from one to six.

1. Bureaucratic bafflement
2. Natural disaster
3. Deliberate interference
4. Accidental animal in the muddle
5. Family demands
6. Personal confusion

So now you have something that can get in the way, right? Spend a few minutes thinking about the wonderful ways that this stumbling block can become a great mountain range between your character and their heart's desire. Ready?

[BANG! Go!]

And write. Have your character starting towards their goal, and encountering the wonders of opposition and resistance, the delights of being pushed further and further from their agenda. And then, with a roar of indignation and commitment, with the blood dripping from their head and hands, with the spare tire flapping madly on the bent rim . . .

Tell us what happens!

tink
(grumble, grumble, grumble . . . I can't believe they did that. Without telling me. And then they explain that . . . argh!)

When we write, we learn about ourselves.