EXERCISE: A time to dance, a time to mourn...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Tue, 01 Jan 2002 23:00:00 -0500

(Get ready with the spit...he's turning again :-)

Friends, Enemies, And Other Travelers

That turning point is becoming a pretty significant writing resource for you, isn't it?  First it was important to you, then you explored some of the other ways that it might have turned out, and looked at the background and future of it.  I think there's one more area you might want to look at while you're exploring your turning point.

I'm sure that there were other people involved with your turning point.  Some may have been friends, some not so friendly, and others related in various ways.  While you can't do this with the real events, in writing you can certainly focus the people, add a significant person, get rid of some extras, make the greedy boss just a little bit more evidently eeeevil, have the waitress drop just the right words to crystallize your thinking, or whatever.

So take a few minutes and think about the characters around your turning point.  Do you need a "wise man" to guide you?  How about a comic foil to draw out the irony of the situation?

It's always fun to consider writing up the scene from one or more of their viewpoints, too.  What happens when you look at your skiing accident from your daughter's viewpoint?  Who is the best person to tell the story of this turning point so that your audience feels the passion, hears the excitement, sees the glory and the terror?

Okay?  Explore those turning points, there's writing in there!

"I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
And I become the other dreamers."  Walt Whitman

a butterfly did dream... tink

EXERCISE: A Torii

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 01:33:42 -0500

All over Japan, you find torii.  Big ornate ones, small simple ones, they dot the landscape.  Sometimes in cascades, sometimes solitary.

So what is a torii?

Physically, it's an arch.  Typically two poles, with a capping pole across the top.  Most often painted red, and usually built with square timbers, the top one slightly longer than needed so that it extends past the uprights on each side.  Probably the simplest structure possible.

Metaphysically, it's a marker.  Someone standing here saw something that enlightened (or delighted?) them.  And they built a torii to mark the place.

So when you see a torii, it is worthwhile to walk over and stand underneath, looking to see what caught someone's attention enough to build a torii here.

I've also learned to look both ways, because it isn't always clear which direction the view is.  I.e., when you are walking on a path, and someone has erected a torii to mark their point of insight, sometimes you need to turn around to see what they were looking at.

In your writing (or perhaps your reading), you may want to put up a torii from time to time.  Mark out something that really seems to work, or that gives you a little extra insight.

Actually, let's suppose you are walking down the path (of life?  of writing? or just out there in the world...) and you see something that makes you want to put up a torii to mark this place for other people to stop and look.

What is that view?  Why does it ring for you?

Take a few words (500 or so?) and write up the view.  Show it to us so vividly that we feel the insight you got.

And that's your torii!

EXERCISE: Character is...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 20:54:00 -0400

Character is like a cardboard carton on a bonfire.

Huh?  Think of the carton burning on the bonfire (which bonfire?  An autumn fest, a mid-winter life-saver, a witch's last chance to repent, or...) and that carton (what carton?  What did it hold?  What colors, what sayings surround it?).

Then think about character, and how that might relate to the carton on the fire.

And tell us what you think!

"Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I'll tell you a
story."  Francis Scott Fitzgerald

tin


   k (over the edge!)