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Posts from the ‘Writing Exercises’ Category

May 3

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Write to your white hot center

In my writing group last night, somebody talked about how as writers we often write around what we really want to say.

Think of your idea, story, or poem as a bright yellow sunflower or maybe a snow-white lily. Around this flower flits a multi-colored butterfly. He dances, darts, and flutters around the flower until he finally hones in and lands.

Writing can be like that. Sometimes, it takes me a while to warm up to what I want to say and that’s okay. Writing is a process of discovery. The key is in the editing after the initial dance of pen and paper. In a poem, I may cut the first stanza or even first half of the poem. In my memoir, the current chapter one is not the chapter one I first wrote. Read more

Apr 30

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Practice the 5-minute “what if?” exercise to enhance your creativity

We’re all born creative thinkers, but sometimes it’s easy to think we aren’t when we’re stuck on a plot or trying to figure out a piece of dialogue for one of our characters.

Part of losing our sense of creativity comes with growing up. When we were kids, we didn’t worry so much about everything having to be logical or correct.

As Michael Michalko says in his book, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques, our minds are marvelous pattern recognition machines. We’re taught to see what we think we “should” see. This helps us be more efficient in many ways. But it’s also why we can read through a page of copy multiple times and miss typos. Our brain compensates and “helps” us see the patterns of what we expect to see. Read more

Apr 17

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Four ways to cultivate writerly inspiration

A young woman introduced herself to me at a poetry reading recently. “I write poetry, too,” she said. “But only when the inspiration strikes me.”

Ah, youth. I remember saying the same thing when I was younger.

You see, I’d bought into the myth that writers are a temperamental lot who only write when their muse “inspires” them. Fortunately, I’ve grown as an artist and realize now that the best writers are the ones that cultivate their inspiration daily. They discipline themselves to write each day even when they’re tired or don’t feel like writing. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, inspiration becomes a habit.

How can you cultivate inspiration? Read more

Apr 16

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Spark story ideas by asking these five questions

One of my writing friends and I were kicking around story ideas this week so we could send out pitches for freelance assignments. I analyzed how we formulated our ideas and thought I’d share these questions in case it helps spark ideas of your own.

These questions are also good for generating ideas for other writing projects, including memoirs, novels, and short stories.

What is misunderstood? Sometimes, something that you think is wrong, or misunderstood may lead you to write about it to right the wrong, shed light on a problem, or improve a process. Read more

Apr 11

A poem about a poem becoming a poem

Considering my love of all things related to writing, it makes sense that I like poems about writing.  A friend recently sent me the poem “Workshop” by Billy Collins–a poem about a poem becoming a poem.

You’ll have to read the poem to understand what I mean.

Collins’s poem sparked my own idea for a poem. Double bonus.

Exercise: Pick a favorite poem about writing and use it to inspire your own.

Happy National Poetry Month!

Apr 3

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How to write a good sex scene

Have you ever read a sex scene that made you cringe? I have. Have you ever read a sex scene that months, or even years, later you think back on and it still makes you sweat? I have.

The first scene, the cringe-worthy one, was written by one of my favorite male authors. It was so bad, I felt embarrassed for him. The scene was full of thrusting and grunting and other horrible, clichéd descriptions of the physical act of sex.

The second scene, the one I still think about to this day, was less about sex and more about the surroundings and emotions of the characters. Read more

Mar 28

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One way to exercise your writer’s mind and have fun

In Ayn Rand’s The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers, she recommends exercising our writer minds long before we actually put words to paper. Then when we do begin to write, the ideas and words flow. I like her advice and think of it in terms of being playful and having fun.

As I read, sometimes a sentence or phrase stops me in my tracks. When this happens, I like to examine the sentence, learn from it or just play around with it.

This happened to me recently when I read this line: “Men do not often boil a woman’s rabbit.” I was reading best-selling author Bob Mayer’s description of different archetypes of men and women. At first, this sentence stopped me because I didn’t understand it. I had to take a few minutes to wrap my brain around it. Finally, I got the meaning—we often see women “boiling a man’s rabbit,” but not vice versa. Read more

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