CornerScribe

Archive for the ‘Writing Habits’ Category

Yes, I know I skipped last week’s habit, but things have been really hectic lately. Work has been crazy, but I hope things will settle down soon. They have too; we’ll all go nuts otherwsise!

For this week, take someone you know and put them into a short short. It can be just a scene, a slice-of-life short, or a full-blown story. Don’t limit yourself to just one person unless you want to. Maybe you pick one person’s physical appearance, another’s personality quirk, and yet another’s speech patterns. You get the idea.

One word of caution. If you plan on actually publishing this (even on your own blog), then watch what you do. If the person can recognize himself/herself, then you might have problems looming! You’ve been warned…

…writing, that is.

I’ve been thinking about family stories and writing, and that led me, of course, to thinking about growing up. I was thinking about the first time I can really remember writing a story. I may have written before this, but if I did, I can’t remember. I know that this is the first time I really got into the “zone.” I saw and felt and experienced the story as I wrote it. I’m still a bit awed by the feeling even now. When I’m lucky enough for it to happen to me, it’s almost as if I’m channeling the story. Plots twist, characters misbehave, and the book takes on a life all its own. The result can be chaotic, but it’s also far more creative and surprising than I could create by planning it out.
I wrote my first story when I was in third grade, so I would have been eight years old. We were writing stories for school, and I had just read Call of the Wild. I sat down in my room, using the seat of one of our kitchen chairs for a desk, and started writing. My room was chilly, and I remember wrapping a little blanket around me as I worked.
My story was about a mother and child who are trapped in the wilderness in a blizzard with hungry, ferocious wolves circling outside. I can’t remember how it ended, but I still remember seeing the scene in my mind. Gray figures of the wolves paced against the white expanse of snow while the mother and child huddled inside the cabin, sneaking peeks through a cracked door.

I’m not sure how long it took, but my feet had gone to sleep by the time I’d finished, and I’d filled more pages than I had ever expected to. I remember the feeling of satisfaction when I finished the story, and how proud I was of it. I’m not sure if I realized it then, but I think that moment did more to make me want to write than anything else I can think of.

I suppose that’s why I write today. It can be difficult to feel a relationship with readers when I spend months working on a novel that no one but me has read. I plan, and hope, that others will one day read and enjoy it too, but the writing process can be quite lonely. The act of writing, of creating, of discovering the story is what keeps me at it.

What keeps you writing?

First off, I just noticed that I let the writing habit section slide after just one entry. I’m not sure what that says about me; I guess I need to get in the habit of creating a habit? Talk about organizationally-challenged…

Oh well. You’ve discovered my terrible secret.

So, for this week’s habit, let’s do something fun each day that’s writing-related. Some interesting writing exercises might be fun. Here are a few I’ve used in the past with varying success.

1. Freewriting is usually a good choice for me. I enjoy the spontaneity of it.
2. Childhood events are a good choice. The trick is digging up a memory; this works better for me if it’s NOT something I readily remember.
3. Old family photos are good for triggering memories, and possible stories. Look at the people and things in the background. Maybe it’s the vase your grandmother gave you or the doll you got for your fifth birthday. If you look closely, something is likely to trigger an interesting memory or idea.
4. Think of a place from your childhood. Maybe it’s your room, a classroom, a playground, anything. It should be somewhere you spent a lot of time though. Draw the place in as great a detail as you can. Put in everything from the furniture to noting the color curtains and if you had a teddy bear on the bed. The more details you remember, the more likely the exercise will work.
5. Rewrite an event from your life and make it like you’d have liked it to happen.
6. Rewrite something that happened to you, but change the gender of the people involved.
7. Browse the internet, magazines, etc. and write a brief monologue for a person you encounter there.

I plan to take a camera on a little road trip this weekend and take some pictures that might serve as inspiration for some stories. If nothing else, they might make for some interesting blog posts.

I thought it might be interesting for me, and for the blog, to begin developing a new writing habit each week. I know that there are some things that I really need to do to develop more productive habits for this year. If you’re like me, the start of the year makes you think of writing goals you’ve met, or missed, and you’d like to start working toward the new year’s goals.

For this week, I’m going to commit to spending a little time each night developing writing goals and a plan for meeting them. This is more detailed than my post the other day in which I outlined how I plan on breaking down my work.

I’ll be posting my goals and plan this week as I finish them, so please feel free to do the same. Some things you might consider as goals…

• Write for a certain time or number of words daily (or weekly)
• Finish a novel, screenplay, etc
• Find an agent or publisher
• Earn a certain amount from your writing
• Start an e-zine

I’m sure you’ll have no trouble coming up with a host of your own, so post them here.