Category Archives: Writing Exercises to Exorcise Demons

3 Surefire Writing Exercises To Keep Me Sharp This Summer

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Photo by Ellin Beltz

Photo by Ellin Beltz

Ah, Summer!

Three months of siren song luring us to laze at the beach, the ballpark, the multiplex. When our brains crave the pinch of an inch in their midsections before the first chill of Fall begins to freeze off the intellect’s fat.

Alas, we writers…

If we’re going to look ourselves in the mirror at the end of each day with only self-loathing and not also unsightly spritzing tears, we must not succumb to these sunny pleasures so insalubrious to our work ethic.

It is true that writing can be such a lonely endeavor, and gosh this time of year is rich with the potential for shared experience.

No…must…resist….

Which is why I’ve created some new writing exercises! Not only to maintain my skills this summer, but also to bring me that much closer to my community without having to leave my desk.

To paraphrase George R.R. Martin, it’s not enough anymore for writers to rely on the stifling inner pressure of their own neuroses; it’s the onslaught of the outside world’s needs that will ultimately drag their projects over the finish line.

Everybody’s process is different, but I offer these up to you as well. Feel free to modify according to need, available resources, and current mental state.

3 Surefire Writing Exercises To Keep Me Sharp This Summer:

#1 Inciting Inspiration – Occasionally during the course of working I get stuck on a story issue, a plot point, or even just the rhythm of the sentences in a paragraph. It can be like walking into a brick wall, again and again and again. And again. Wouldn’t it be nice to go out and grab a frozen yogurt and then browse the antique cheese shops on Venice for a few hours?

Nice try, Summer, but you’re no match for the arrangement I’ve made with the friendly folks at Blooming Little Daisies Day Camp. I’ve got an hour to bridge my creative impasse or a busload of kids dangling over a sinkhole will know literally what the deep dark abyss of writer’s block feels like. Nothing greases the wheel of my imagination like blinking the stinging sweat out of my eyes to watch them plead with me via webcam. I mean, here’s hoping. Thanks kids, keep your heads covered and fingers crossed!

#2 Crafting Memorable Characters – Characters are the lifeblood of story, so if my protagonist or antagonist or a supporting player comes across lacking specificity, it weakens the whole body of the book, so to speak. Weakening one’s resolve to keep his hindquarters in his writing chair, to not stray when Baby Geniuses 3 beckons from the mall cinema.

Ha. Summer, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that now that I’m collaborating with Peter Gruntergo and his doctors at This Dying Old Lady Memorial Hospital. I’ve got 45 minutes to spice up a dull character or Peter’s going to feel a little incomplete himself when he doesn’t get that new kidney. I can’t tell you what a lift it is when I’ve got medical staff and the Gruntergo family on Skype screaming me to victory.

Seriously, I can’t tell you yet. So at least I hope it’ll be a lift. We’ll see. Let’s maybe hold off awhile on ordering those balloons.

#3 Building Stamina for the Second Draft – It’s hard for me to read a first draft without agonizing over those areas that in the moment felt so magical now ringing false and flat. How do I gut up and build the stamina to tackle a rewrite? It’s a period where I feel most vulnerable as a writer, and perhaps most susceptible to the sweet-nothings of ocean air and a Nora Roberts novel, and burying strangers up to their necks in beach sand.

Wow. You almost got me, Summer. Almost. But you’ll need an extra biscuit for breakfast if you think you’re going to overpower my teaming up with an unquenchable passion, indefatigable imagination, and ironclad discipline. And my good friends at Callus Realty who’ve generously provided a closed-up home with two hundred baby rabbits trapped inside and a pernicious gas leak set to go off if I can’t finish by September 30. They are pretty cute animals, even on this grainy CCTV monitor, it would be a shame to see them…well, golly, I better stop writing this and get to it!

Happy Summer Everyone!

Spring Writing Prompts

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Photo by Benjamin Gimmel

Photo by Benjamin Gimmel

Happy Spring! Or for those of you reading this in the Midwest or on the East Coast, Happy Second Winter!

Well, regardless of the weather outside, have you taken your creative temperature lately? If you’re a writer like me you understand that the “flow” can vary widely, from steady bursts to meager trickles to tipping back your canteen and swallowing a mouthful of desert.

If you’re in a rut and spitting up sand, do what I do and stop what you’re struggling with and write something radically different. Just to goose your juices a little bit and reassure yourself that your creativity is still intact.

Here are a few of my favorite spring-themed writing prompts that never fail to light a fire under my brain and get me back on track. I’d love to hear if any of these help you out. Happy writing!

1. Imagine you’re Peter Cottontail hopping down the bunny trail with another Easter on its way, but this year you’ve got a raging case of genital warts from messing around in Farmer Glen’s radish patch. How will you explain yourself to Mrs. Cottontail?

2. You’re a hitchhiker picked up by two Grinnell College students on their way to Florida for spring break. Even though you have severe gastrointestinal problems you don’t want to disappoint your new friends and not enjoy a burrito and cheap tequila shooters. How’s the last 5 hours of that drive to Cocoa Beach going to go?

3. You’ve been recruited to help your doddering grandmother spring-clean her sweet little cottage by the lake. When you’re alone sweeping up the hall you hear a voice coming from the attic that sounds just like your grandfather who allegedly ran off when you were 9 begging for someone to loosen the screws on his head vise. What’s the rest of your afternoon look like?

4. Write from the POV of a pollen cloud coming of age during the great Hay Fever Festival. What’s it like to learn that you’re essentially the “semen” of the flower world?

5. You’re sixteen now and believe you’re too old to be receiving kites for your birthday, but there you are unwrapping another friggin’ kite and smiling real big just so Aidan Welke doesn’t get his feelings hurt. What might happen if when the cake comes out and everybody starts singing you grab the cutting knife with no intention of using it on the cake?

A Winter Writing Exercise

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Photo by Stu Spivack

Photo by Stu Spivack

It’s winter time once again, when the weather often keeps us indoors, and we tend to indulge ourselves a little more than we should. Because, well, because we can’t eat just one package of Oreos while staring contemplatively into a pile of logs aflame in the fireplace, can we? And then throw in the holidays and of course who among us can resist the festive tradition that is letting ourselves go?

We writers are no strangers to this affliction and it’s not only our waistlines that require a watchful eye. Have you seen some of the sentences lumbering about this time of year? In between exercising our bodies we  must also exercise a little creative restraint.

Case in point, take a look at the chunky fellow I’ve written below:

Was it so unusual to keep the head of a snowman alive in his freezer, he wondered, the coal eyes and the carrot nose moldy with frost from 47 days’ age in cold storage, the Scottish plaid scarf around its no-neck as frigid and stiff as his wife when she left to pick the kids up from school and never came back, or was it a cruel world unsympathetic to a traumatic melt thirty years prior—“puh-uh-uhddles, Mommy!”—that had also dissolved the part of his brain that would have, among other things, prevented him from embezzling from his children’s thriving fruity-chews vaccination business to keep building a corncob pipe collection to find the one pipe, the one pipe, Mr. McShivers wouldn’t spit out of the place on his face where presumably his mouth should be?

Whoa. Talk about junk in the trunk. Does one sentence really need to carry all of that weight? Let’s see what happens when we force it to miss a few meals:

Was it so unusual to keep the head of a snowman alive in his freezer, he wondered.

Better than the paleo diet! Trim, concise and still compelling enough to pull you into the next sentence about the coal eyes and the carrot nose. Speaking of coal eyes and a carrot nose, have you ever wondered where the tradition of building a snowman came from? No, you haven’t? Oh, well, never mind, back to the writing exercise and our slim new opening sentence.

Was it so unusual to keep the head of a snowman alive in his freezer, he wondered, the coal eyes and the carrot nose moldy with frost from 47 days’ age in cold storage, the Scottish plaid scarf around its no-neck as frigid and stiff as his wife when she left to pick the kids up from school and never came back, or was it a cruel world unsympathetic to a traumatic melt thirty years prior—“puh-uh-uhddles, Mommy!”—that had also dissolved the part of his brain that would have, among other things, prevented him from embezzling from his children’s thriving fruity-chews vaccination business to keep building a corncob pipe collection to find the one pipe, the one pipe, Mr. McShivers wouldn’t spit out of the place on his face where presumably his mouth should be?

Whoa! What happened? I take my eyes off you for a minute and you’ve ballooned.

Well you said it, you can’t just eat one package of Oreos. And you know the cookies with the Hershey kisses on top? I had about 70 of those. Also, I’m taking my cereal with eggnog these days.

Oh my. How about celery sticks for a snack instead of all those commas? Maybe a light jog around the park to lose that “or” in the middle?

Was it so unusual to keep the head of a snowman alive in his freezer, he wondered, the coal eyes and the carrot nose moldy with frost from 47 days’ age in cold storage, the Scottish plaid scarf around its no-neck as frigid and stiff as his wife when she left to pick the kids up from school and never came back.

Very nice, now you can see your toes without that big old question mark hanging out. By the way, have you ever wondered about the origin of the question

Hey, pass that tub of frosting over here! 

No. Stop it. Put it down. Not with the big spoon!

Was it so unusual to keep the head of a snowman alive in his freezer, he wondered, the coal eyes and the carrot nose moldy with frost from 47 days’ age in cold storage, the Scottish plaid scarf around its no-neck as frigid and stiff as his wife when she left to pick the kids up from school and never came back, or was it a cruel world unsympathetic to a traumatic melt thirty years prior—“puh-uh-uhddles, Mommy!”—that had also dissolved the part of his brain that would have, among other things, prevented him from embezzling from his children’s thriving fruity-chews vaccination business to keep building a corncob pipe collection to find the one pipe, the one pipe, Mr. McShivers wouldn’t spit out of the place on his face where presumably his mouth should be?

Aren’t you at least embarrassed by all the hyphens? You can’t even fasten the top three buttons on your shirt.

You know what? I’m okay with how I look. I’ve got shape, I’ve got rhythm, I feel like a boulder rolling downhill, even though I usually drive. I think I’ve even got room for more words. 

Okay, that’s enough.

How about you make me a nice bacon-wrapped Thesaurus?

(Writing) Exercise over!

Character Study

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Photo by Cgs

Characters are the lifeblood of any story. With some exceptions, characters more than plot are what keep a reader turning the page; the characters we love and the characters we love to hate are what call us back to our books time after time, more so than the most princely of prose, setting or scene.

The challenge for us writers is to create someone memorable, fully-realized, and flawed, a person on the page who feels as close to a real flesh and blood human being as possible, and then maybe a little more than that, someone just a little bit larger than life.  No easy task.

So how do we go about building such a creature, what is the process? Do we cherry pick the traits and personalities of our friends and family and stitch them together into a kind of Frankenstein’s monster? Start from scratch and sketch out character bios, covering birth to death and everything in between? I’ve found that both strategies can be helpful, but I’m the kind of writer who can only write about a character for so long.  However, before I thrust my creations into the actual story, whatever their current shape, and discover who he or she is along the way, there is one final step in the development process I like to undertake.

I spend a day as my main character. Talking, behaving, thinking, reacting, and doing just like he or she might.

Cam Hanson, the 15-year-old main character of the novel I just finished, spends a good deal of time sitting in on therapy sessions with the intention of facilitating them before he sees 16. So I had a great time doing the same thing with therapy sessions out here.  Of course I had to do about 30 of them in order to cobble together a near half hour’s worth of experience, but it was worth it despite all the hysterical people and the tears. Some people out there are pretty messed up.

This character-building process was a bit more difficult with Vicky, the main character from my short story Go Tina! Go Tina!, as she’s a thirty-something woman who impersonates her teenage daughter and tries out for the high school cheerleading squad. One day in spanks is plenty for me, although I was proud of my L-stand and almost made it to the top of the pyramid before the police dragged me away.

In my new work, a YA paranormal horror novel called The Shaded, my main character Robbie Rapp discovers he’s a demon-human hybrid and has developed certain special powers.  And so I’ll be spending a day in the near future trying to turn myself into shadows, walking through walls, and running from people I believe to be members of the sinister occultist organization who want to clone me and then kill off the original. If you live in Los Angeles, keep an eye out for me this weekend.

If I could be a fictitious character for one day it would probably be Roald Dahl’s Henry Sugar, who trains himself to see through the backs of playing cards and makes millions at casinos around the world. Yes, I would also donate the money to orphanages like Henry does, but I’d probably sock a few hundred thousand away for future outings as other characters, and for bail money.

What about you? Who are your favorite characters from the world of fiction? Who would you like to be for a day?

What To Do About Writer’s Block

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Photo by Jkgroove

I don’t know what to write about today. I’ve been staring at the computer for at least an hour with nothing to show for it. Okay, that’s not entirely true. There was a brief moment of inspiration courtesy of the stupid cursor winking and taunting me from the blank page. First, I typed out “F*ck you, cursor!” about ten times, and then “F*ck! F*ck! F*ck!” in a crisscrossing pattern down the page, and then finally just a single “WHAT THE F*CK AM I GOING TO WRITE ABOUT?!!!” in 72 font. But I deleted it all, and nothing’s come since.

I don’t believe in writer’s block but sometimes I hit a wall and can’t find a way around it. What do I do when this happens? I try harder. I hold my breath and concentrate on accessing the 90% of my brain that I supposedly will never use in my lifetime. Usually, I stop before I pass out. Yeah, I like to suffer for my art.

But what the f*ck am I going to write about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, maybe it’s time for some fresh air. I’m going to take my laptop outside and see if a change of scenery will help shake me out of this funk. So hold on a second….

Okay, I’m outside of my apartment now sitting at the top of the stairs and observing the street below. My laptop balanced on my thighs, I’m just going to type out what I see around me. As long as I’m writing there’s an opportunity that something’s going to spark. An idea will bloom. Maybe I’ll focus on something specific. Like those well-manicured miniature trees in front of the charter school across the street. They look like candelabras, and from here their leaves seem like they’d be fuzzy to the touch.

And now something’s happening. A car’s pulled up and stopped in the middle of the street outside my apartment. It’s a black Suburban with tinted windows. One of those for-hire cars. The driver rolls down the window. He’s looking at me. Seems friendly enough, though that nervous twitch below his left eye probably scares some people off. He’s asking me for directions to the 405 Freeway. Funny, he should know if he’s a driver, but hey, as I know firsthand, Los Angeles can be a confusing city to navigate. I’m not into shouting so I think I’ll go down and tell him where to go. So hold on a second…

Okay, this is weird. I swear the clock on my laptop said 8:30 AM when I went to give that guy directions, and now it says 9:00 AM and I can’t account for the last thirty minutes. And why is the only light the glow coming off the computer monitor? Obviously, I must have felt another change of scenery was needed to really kick-start the creative flow. But why I chose a cramped dark place where I can hear people screaming through the walls I have no idea. And why I thought a change of clothes was also necessary is anybody’s guess. But, hey, no judgments, I’m all about making peace with the creative process in order to get the most out of it. So I’m here, in a cell or whatever, dressed in this blood-stained hospital gown, let the artistic rejuvenation begin!

And guess what? Despite the fact that the majority of my lower body is starting to go numb, I think this is actually working. Yep, my brain is a-churnin’. Seriously, I can literally hear the gears spinning in my head. It’s got something. And now my fingers are suddenly electric. Here it comes!

oatmeal, eggs, spaghetti, bananas  

What the f*ck!

I’m back to writing about my surroundings. Fine, I’m going to focus again on something specific. How about that message carved into the wall? H-E-L. Wait, now something else is happening. A door opens. A blast of harsh florescent light streams in from a dirty hallway. Some guys dressed like surgeons are here with a gurney. Okay, this is pretty interesting. One of the surgeons holds a drippy syringe in his hand. Oh yeah, this is definitely going to spark something good!

Oh, hold on, apparently the surgeons want me to put the computer down. I’m not exactly sure because they aren’t speaking English, but judging from their smiles and hand gestures they seem very eager for me to stop writing and come over and talk with them. All right, let me see what’s going on. So just hold on another second…