LESSON: Incorporating Writing While Out

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by lovelyxmalia, Nov 21, 2007.

  1. lovelyxmalia

    lovelyxmalia Banana Hammock Lifetime Supporter

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    A Writer's Book of Days - Judy Reeves

    Places to Practice

    To say cafes may be redundant, but nevertheles, cafes top the list of favorite places to write. The ambience sensory ambrosia plus the sweet quintessence of time set aside for good and important things make cafes and writing soulmates.

    • Take that mellow ambience of a cafe, turn it inside out with bright lights, (probably florescent); gurgling, whooshing, thumping noises; the stink of dirty clothes, soap, bleach; lint-filled air guaranteed to make you sneeze, time ticking away, quarter by quarter; and furrow-browed folks focused on the mundane and necessary chores and you've got the Laundromat. A completely different sensory experience and a stimulating place for writing practice. If you have to be there, anyhow, what the heck, use it. Use it all.
    • Parks and picnic areas and spaces that are green and lush and open to the sky make natural settings for writing. Sun shining or hidden by clouds, a little hot, too cool? Never mind. Take a walk, take your shoes off, take the time to lie back on the grass and write. And just because you're in the green and blue open spaces, doesn't mean you have to write pastoral. Often the opposite of where we find ourselves is what we write, as the globe-trotting Ernest Hemingway said, writing of Michigan while hunched over cafe au lait in a Parisian cafe.
    • Libraries and bookstores (if they offer tables and chairs for lingering book lovers, as many do these days, complete with cafes). Who knows what thoughts or ideas or images or surprising and delicious phrases might find their way into your writing just by sharing the same literary aerie with all those books?
    • Bus depots, reain stations, airports, and other stations where travelers come and go, but you stay in one place and observe them, picking up the buzz of motion and letting its vibration inform your writing.
    • Better still, get aboard that bus headed for the next town over, or hop an outbound train. Take the trolley to the end of the line, hail a taxi for a ten-or-twenty-minute ride, or grab some other mode of public transportation. You write while they drive, and let yourself be transported to somewhere else, both in body and writer's spirit.
    • Diners, lunch counters, delis, and coffee shops. You may have to keep buying something to justify your counter space, but the milieu and it's accompanying sounds, smells, and flavors can add as much spice to your writing as the Poupon. Never mind the corned beef stains. Leave a big tip.
    • Bars, lounges, joints, and dives. If it's not too dark and the music is food, go ahead. Use the sharp click-clack of pool balls to accent your writing, the hovering blue haze and beer breath of the place. But remember this: unlike genies, the Muse doesn't live in a bottle.
    • Your bed, with pillows piled high behind you, maybe one on your lap to support your notebook, a steamy cup of coffee, mint tea, or cocoa with easy reach on the nightstand where a candle dances and a sweet bouquet reminds you that you are loved (even if you did buy it yourself). Try this practice location first thing in the morning while sleep still clings to your consciousness, or at night before you slide down into dreamy repose. Especially recommended in the midst of some rainy day just before or after you treat yourself to a lovely nap.
    • Keep your notebook with you in your car, and as you're giong from here to there, and if it's a beautiful day, take a detour. Park at some fine lookout over a river or above the city or along a stretch of white-sand beach. Slide on over to the passenger side where you've got some elbow room, roll the window down, put your feet up, lean back, and write. Ah, that's better.
    Fresh Images and How to Find Them

    Images create pictures for readers. Using sensuous details and descriptive adjectives, the writer leads the reader to the place where imagination takes over and the setting, place, and people - all the sights, sounds, smells, and textures of the piece - are conjured in the reader's mind. The more distinct the image, the more the reader feels present and a part of the story. Your job as a writer is to find fresh images. Or make fresh from stale. Take these suggestions for finding images lterally or figuratively.

    • stand in one place and look up, look down, turn around 360 degrees, looking as you turn
    • change your perspective: stand up, sit down, squat, lie down
    • be a camera: go long shot, medium shot, close-up, extreme close-up
    • focus, lose focus (make soft eyes, don't look directly at an object), change your depth of field
    • glance out of the corner of your eye
    • squint
    • close your eyes, blindfold yourself, and explore your environs; have a friend take you outside or drive you to another location
    • look in the dark
    • look in the shadows
    • imagine you're seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling something for the first time
    • feel objects without looking at them
    • rather than just fingers, feel with other body parts, elbows, cheeks, heels, thighs, wrists
    • plug your ears and view a soundless world
    • follow the contours; notice the intersections, the confluences
    • look beneath, behind, under, and over
    • change locations, locate the image in another setting
    • water it down, rough it up, polish it, paint it another color
    • study a common object and make a list of what it looks like
    Use these to make one writing entry. Try writing in a new place, and take where ever you go and dissect it.
     

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