writercises | Entries tagged with creative

Original Posting 11/20/2019

Are you nano'ing? Yep, we're at about day 20! So two-thirds of the way through? Let's see, if you use the Nanowrimo target of 50,000, you should have roughly 33,333... and spare words in your bag? And be looking at that final spurt, just 16,667 more to go?If you wrote in order (order? What's that? Oh, you mean a burger and fries? Nah, I'm busy now, maybe later...), then you may be thinking about the final climax, the big face-off where your hero (I need a hero... no, no, no earwurms now! But it's a pretty good song? And cool video, too. https://youtu.be/bWcASV2sey0 ) Where was I? Oh, yeah, your hero faces the big bad, and with a little luck, pluck, and a lot of effort... WINS!Or maybe you're figuring out some odds and ends to stuff in to keep the words coming? Hey, play the game of interviewing your characters, or taking a tour of the setting, or even reading the newspaper report about the amazing events? Whatever keeps your creative flames burning, right?So -- the good news is, we've done 20 days of nano, nano! And there's just 10 more days to go! So... write, write, write until broad daylight... ( Rock around the clock? Bill Haley does this one https://youtu.be/7sjQAvEVbtA This one has fun video! https://youtu.be/Ud_JZcC0tHI ... Oh, right, write!)(This distraction brought to you by the letter Q on your keyboard!)Now, go write. Words!

mbarker

Original Posting 7/5/2019

Writer's Digest, November 1991, has an article by Peter Leschak on pages 26-29, talking about The Five-Step Creativity Workout. The subtitle suggests, "An unexercised mind can't be counted on for heavy writing. Here's how to build your creative muscles."Peter starts by recounting two anecdotes, one about a friend who was a world-class goalie and occasionally found himself catching pucks in slow motion, the other about a Nobel prize-winning chemist who dreamed the formula he was searching for. In both cases, it's practice and hard work over a long time that set up these seemingly amazing achievements. So, "we can achieve similar revelations in our writing – encounter moments when every word seems right and the ideas endless… You can't wait for inspiration. You have to lure it to you – and then reach out and grab it." Then he suggests five keys to help you develop.1. Concentration. The key to writing, to being a creator, is observation, information, perceptions. "The creative mind isn't relaxed and laid-back." Peter suggests remembering your motivation. Making money and paying the bills, your message, "whatever focuses your attention on writing, and keeps it there, is the key to heightening your powers of concentration." Think about the main reason you write.2. Form. "Limits – that is, form – challenge the mind, forcing creativity." Peter talks about a word game that he uses to challenge himself. Close your eyes, flip open a dictionary, and point to something on the page. Use that word as the first line of your writing. Flip some more pages, point again, and use that word in your second line. Keep going! "It's an effective way to jumpstart the mind, and I'm often amazed at the associations and ideas that pop up." Experiment with form. Play with it. "Write a character sketch of your spouse as seen through the eyes of your dog, or better yet, your goldfish."Peter ends his discussion of form with a description of a rather strange experiment. Send students into a room with a chair and a bowl of Jell-O. Tell them to bare their souls to the Jell-O. Surprisingly, the students found they learned lots of new things doing this. "You can't think in an ordinary way when you're talking to a bowl of Jell-O."3. Solitude. Cut off the input and see what you've already got. Set aside a place and time to write. Make sure you have got all the tools, and avoid distractions. "Solitude allows the fresh and unpredictable to surface."4. Patience. "Creative wisdom, the ability to produce good work, often comes only with experience – with time and maturity, and the accumulation of knowledge." Keep plugging.5. Confidence. "If you have a goal that's reasonably within your grasp, then faith plays an important role. The raw belief that you can accomplish something will help bring it about." Peter suggests that you need to realize two things. First, you can write. You learned it as a child, and you been practicing ever since! It's a craft, and you need to keep doing it. Second, you can destroy what you have done. "No one has to see what you've written until you are happy with it." You are in control. Now, creating does take guts. When you present your work to an audience, there's judgment, criticism. "That's painful because there will always be some who won't like what you've written." Remember, though, if you don't write it and publish it, there's no way for anyone else to read it! So, set yourself a goal, and keep going.Exercise? Well, stop and think about it. His five keys, concentration, form, solitude, patience, confidence? How often do you practice those? What can you do to build them? Go ahead, give yourself some time and freedom to work on those, and see what happens to your creativity!There's a sidebar on page 28, called The Liberty Banana by Marshall Cook. It's a different creativity exercise. Basically, consider someone challenging you, or a room full of executives, to give as many answers as they can in five minutes to the question, "How many ways is a banana different from a bell?" Then, take another five minutes and consider the question, "How is a banana like a bell?" And, just to top everything off, take another five minutes and consider, "How can you make a bell better by making it more like a banana?" So, try comparing your hero to a bicycle, or perhaps just two random subjects, to get yourself started! How is it different, how is it like, and how can you make it better?

mbarker

Original posting Dec. 26, 2018

Is it time to write yet? Well, you might want to dive into it. But James recommends that while you are writing, you build the fires of creativity? Creativity as you write? You mean I don't just put my nose to the grind stone, fingers on the keyboard, pedal to the metal, and crunch out the words? Well, James suggests you do a little bit more… Maybe one of these?

1. The Novel Journal. Do some work in your journal before you dive into the writing. Maybe start by writing something personal. Then some questions about the work in progress. Where are you on the plot, characters, what comes next, scenes? Then start writing. Maybe just five minutes, kind of stretching and a little personal brainstorming session before you settle down to the focused writing.

2. The boys in the basement (a.k.a. your subconscious, your muse, whatever). Before you go to sleep, ask yourself a question about the story. Picture that last scene you wrote, and ask yourself what comes next. Keep a notebook beside you while you sleep for great answers in your dreams. And in the morning, take a few minutes and write down anything that comes to mind. Trust the boys in the basement to come up with stuff.

3. Exercise. Tired of sitting, hunched over that pad of paper or that keyboard? Get up and do some exercises. Take a walk. Break writing into 25 minutes of writing, then either a 10 minute walk or exercise, or maybe a 10 minute lay down and do deep breathing pause.

4. Mind map! Take a sheet of paper. Write the names of the characters in bubbles around the edges. Then add events, and links tying things together. You may be surprised at what shows up.

5. Skip ahead. So you're stuck? Just mark it, and jump ahead to the next piece that you want to write. Come back later and fill it in.

So, the point is, even when you start writing, keep the mental flow going, the wells of creativity pumping out ideas.

Next, before we get to Super Structure, James takes a look at scenes. He calls them the building blocks of fiction. So we need to know how to make good bricks before we start on our building, right?

mbarker

Original Posting June 28, 2018

Some years ago, on TV, I saw a gentleman teaching drawing. He said that most people tell him they cannot draw, however, he had a simple technique which he said usually resulted in surprisingly good drawings. Then he demonstrated the technique with some students. He took a picture of someone's head, a typical portrait, and asked the students to draw it.

However, instead of showing them the portrait in the normal position, he turned it upside down. So the picture was someone standing on their head.

Oddly enough, this simple change resulted in surprisingly good drawings! The students were surprised at how easily they could draw this portrait standing on its head.

The teacher explained that he thought most people can't really see the picture because they know what they are looking at. They have an image, a model, an idea of what they're looking at, and they can't really see what is in front of them. However, turning it upside down breaks that barrier and forces them to really look at what is there.

So what does that have to do with writing? Well, all too often, I think our characters, our plots, our settings… We can't see them because the tropes, the mental models, our expectations of what we are looking at get in the way.

So, stand on your head. Then write. Break through those tired old cliches and tropes and expectations, look at what is in front of you with new eyes, and... write about it!

You might be surprised at what you will see, once you stand on your head to look!

Write?

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original posting 20 May 2009

This was in my morning random quotations.

"It's just human. We all have the jungle inside of us. We all have wants and needs and desires, strange as they may seem. If you stop to think about it, we're all pretty creative, cooking up all these fantasies. It's like a kind of poetry." Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

Look inside at the jungle. See what pads along the path, or lurks in the shadows. Is there something dripping, drip, drip, drip from overhead? When you come out of the jungle, where do you find yourself? What landscape greets your eyes? And if you turn around and look into the jungle, who or what is watching you?

Explore that jungle. See what you find there, and share your explorations.

Write.

The lion sleeps tonight...

Current Mood: sneezing

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The Place For My Writers Notes

Entries tagged with creative

NANO: Word counting in the night?

TECH: The Five-Step Creativity Workout (Moldy Oldie!) (770 words)

TECH: Super Structure (part three) (380 words)

TECH: Standing On Your Head While Writing... (268 words)

FILL: The Jungle inside

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