Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
The challenge: Write a one page (~250 words) description of a barn as seen through the eyes of a man whose son just died in a war overseas. Do not mention the man, the son, war, or death. My work: The barn looks to be the color of dried blood. The roof, taken by a [...]
Digging into Karl Schroeder’s Queen of Candesce right now. I love the guy’s world-building, and Virga is a memorable locale. It’s the last of the trio of books I bought at Uncle Hugo’s a few weeks ago, and turning into the best of the three. The others were Edelman’s Infoquake and Morgan’s Altered Carbon. The [...]
Recently, J.D. Salinger packed his bags and headed off for a meeting with the Great Literary Agent in the Sky. This got me to thinking about The Catcher in the Rye, and how I really can’t stand it. I mean, I understand the literary significance of the book, but that may well be its only [...]
Source: Can’t remember where I found it, but the exercise is to list ten random material nouns and ten random immaterial nouns. Then, connect one of each using “of” to create a series of interesting descriptions to use in a sentence. Material Nouns: calendar, photograph, bolt, bottle, platter, book, microphone, wire, frame, sword Immaterial Nouns: [...]
Source: Writing Forward. Take an original paragraph you’ve written and cut everything you can without losing the original meaning of the work. Original: Exhaustion of the deep, bone-weary variety has a unique way of numbing an emotional response. The trio — Addy, Khalid, and Markus — had watched the supply hopper come in through the [...]
Source: Writing Forward. Write one sentence that is at least 100 words long. Then, rewrite that sentence in 10 words or less. Part One: A truth: getting shot and living is akin to being born and John knows that because he’s living through it all over again from the moment of the bullet’s impact into [...]
This exercise is to write a fragment of a story (500 words) written entirely in imperative commands. Source: 3 AM Epiphany Here we go:
1. Bike stuff is going so-so. Framebuilding class is awesome. Pre-season training has been spotty. Going to get back at that tonight. 2. Writing exercises are going okay, I suppose. A few per week seems reasonable, and I’m still plugging away at #3, which has really weird POV issues. 3. I’ll be posting some more [...]
This exercise is to write a 600 word short story from the first person POV, using a personal pronoun only twice. Source: 3 AM Epiphany Here’s my take:
So I’m counting this as a writing exercise since I blew it out in about 10 minutes. BoingBoing is having a 100-word fiction contest. The theme is “Found in Space.” My first draft was 122 words. I really had to work to get it down to 100. Here’s my results: The machine moved, Scott followed. [...]
