Archive for the ‘Exercises’ Category:
Written on February 9th, 2013 by adminno shouts
Describing with clarity is one of the most important things a poet can do with their writing.
Get some paper or preferred writing material and begin writing, just what ever comes into your head for 5 minutes. If you struggle with this sort of exercise then just start by describing the room you are in.
Now go through what you have written. It will be a mess.
Start out seeing if there is any sort of structure there already, if so build on it. If not see if it at least in a coherant order. Reorder and rewrite until you have something that has structure.
Now see what happens if you remove as many words as you can.
Keep all the re-arranges you have done.
Another thing to do is to take out all the thes and ands and so on.
None of these will drafts is likely to be a poem in itself but if you merge some of them together, taking the lines you like from each then you may get something you like.
Written on February 8th, 2013 by adminno shouts
Imagine unity, see a world of oneness – what would it be like to be part of this? How would it be better or worse, freeing or claustrophobic, never lonely, never alone – would you care?
Find out what sort of symbols have represented unity in past cultures, what was their take on it?
Maybe ask others about what the word means to them. Let this information sink in.
Once it is almost forgotten begin to write about it.
Written on February 6th, 2013 by adminno shouts
Activity – what does the word conjour up for you? Scurrying ants or water skiing?
Maybe your aunt is 70 + and still running her own little farm and scaring walkers with machettes and her other activities.
Create a character and have them try different activities – list what they are going to do and then write a stanza or verse for each.
Written on February 5th, 2013 by adminno shouts
Serenity and peace of mind, the zen and all composure.
What gives you a sense of serenity? Do you have a calming meditation? Or are you a Firefly fan?
Think on what the word serenity means to you, go and listen to the Firefly theme tune – even if you are not a science fiction fan the tune is haunting and cuts to the bone with it oriental flavour and use of lamenting strings.
Think about situations were serenity and with drawing within maybe the only way to keep going.
If the Ballad of Serenity is not for you find some calming music that is and listen too it and write, let the music wash over you, retreat within yourself and let the images build from the sense of the word and the music and begin to write and continue writing for the length of the musical piece.
Written on February 4th, 2013 by adminno shouts
As a writer you may well suffer from verbosity or verbal diarrhea!
Normally in poetry we are trying not to be overly verbose but in this case it maybe fun to see just how long winded you can be in describing something. Look around you – is there something on your desk or on the train or where ever you happen to be writing, that catches your eye. Look at it, examine it and think for a few minutes.
Now start writing and writing and writing, describe it in minute detail, what does it look like, what does it feel like, how does it smell or taste or how do you think it would smell and taste? How does it make you feel? Are there any memories attached to it?
Write solidly for half an hour, do not worry about punctuation or structure you may cut or prune most of it away or it may well be several pieces of work. Put in as much detail and description as you can – the absurder the better – it may even result in something comedic.
Written on February 3rd, 2013 by adminno shouts
Sincerity is a good word for poets to take notice of.
Be honest with your writing even if it brutal or insipid or something you feel anxiety over sharing, remember if you do not like the poem you do not have to show people but keep it and check back on it in a few months time and you may well be surprised with what you have got!
Make a list of good aspects and bad aspects of yourself – an equal number of each now pair them up, are there any strange or weird juxtapositions?
Now with honest feeling write about yourself using these pairings.
This may produce one or many poems just try and make sure you are sincere with it!
Written on February 2nd, 2013 by adminno shouts
This year marks the 5th year that WoPoWriMo has existed as a poetry writing challenge and we are celebrating! As you can tell by our birthday tea! There will be more tea related web-badges for the collectors to collect and maybe even some cake and pressies!
Now it is time to think about that poetry writing marlarky!
Today’s theme is birthdays, parties and special occasions. This back over the years and all those parties your’ve been too – some good and some less so. Is there anything particularly rememberable about any of them? A nutty uncle who always took his teeth out when drunk or the time aunty Mildred dropped the birthday cake on Harry’s head…
Make a list of events and then expand each to what it ment/means to you. How did the cake taste?
Ask yourself questions like did you like the music was the floor sticky with spilt drink.
Once you have your expanded list spend ten minutes writing what ever comes into your head about parties.
With some luck this may well turn out to be the beginning of a poem!
Now get writing!
p.s. if you have not collected your free web-bade yet go here.
Written on January 21st, 2013 by adminno shouts
After last weeks post everyone on the team made their own jars – we all really liked the way this decoupage jar turned out. You can tell it is a writers jar due to the words and phrases that have been added – to a certain extent the jar itself has become a poem.
The words read:
Passion and Adventure
Self publish with confidence
lucrative novel deal after blog
Country Walking
EXPERT!
Sci-fi writers of the future
anthology
Don’t forget
Short stories
And another thing…
Well done
Bookend
Writing opportunities
Written on January 14th, 2013 by adminno shouts
Sometimes ideas pop into your head at the most bizar of moments and what are you to do with them? Sometimes they are no more than a sentence, a word, an image sketched in stick men. The answer is simple make an ideas jar, place the thoughts and ideas and concepts or snippets of conversations, images from magazines you liked, all off it. You an decorate the jar if you like.
Keep the jar going for until you need an idea or face a month of writing challenges or just keep it going for a year so that you have lots of lovely things to write about this time next year.
We all have our jars ready for decorating here 🙂
Written on February 28th, 2011 by adminno shouts
Image copy right belongs to Sarah Snell-Pym
To see a larger version of the image just click on it.
This medieval youth is about to be plunged into a quest of epic proportions – spend 20 minutes writing from the image.
Today is also the last day of the WoPo challenge – we hope you’ve all had as much fun as we have 🙂 There will be weekly updates on the site from now on.
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