Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Day 8 & 9 - Discovering the Writer Within

Discovering the Writer Within by Ballenger & Lane. It’s a 40 day program to exercise your creativity and imagination. I’m giving a general feel for the assignment and a little bit of what I accomplished.

Day 8: Take the list of observations/thoughts about the rock from day 7. Circle those you think are unusual and not the obvious. According to the authors I did a good job of this. I listed such things as moon rock, fossil, stone fence, skipping stones, and the Simon and Garfunkel song Island. Also, part of Day 8 was to go outside with a camera and shoot an inanimate object from different angles. Free write for ten minutes about the experience - save the images for Day 16.

Day 9:
Part 1: Go to a public place where you go often but never really notice. Brainstorm a list of details that describe the place (using physical descriptions, thoughts, feelings, ect-use all five senses). Circle the ones that go beyond the obvious. Using one of these write a brief description.

I choose a local Border with a Seattle coffee shop inside:
The iced brew shoots up the straw, hits my tongue and goes smoothly down my throat. I sigh like a drug addict as the heroin hits her vein.

Part 2: Brainstorm for ten minutes a list of details to complete a paragraph beginning with this sentence: He/she had a strange taste in clothes:

His goal was to start a new fashion trend: Salvation Army Chic. But it never caught on.
Or
He shopped at the same stores as Johnny Depp, but pulling off the artsy, cool look, is better left to those who weigh under two hundred pounds.

That was fun. See you on Day 10.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing the book. I've been trying some of the activities. They are good for therapy and general creativiity as well as for writing...fun too.

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