{"id":1472,"date":"2019-10-05T01:10:30","date_gmt":"2019-10-05T00:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.writingroutines.com\/?p=1472"},"modified":"2019-10-05T01:10:30","modified_gmt":"2019-10-05T00:10:30","slug":"15-exercises-inspire-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.writingroutines.com\/15-exercises-inspire-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Exercises To Inspire Your Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A blank page is also a door \u2014 it contains infinity, like a night sky with a supermoon really close to the Earth, with all the stars and the galaxies, where you can see very, very clearly\u2026 You know how that makes your heart beat faster?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 David Mitchell, author of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/2W5aFe\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cloud Atlas<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sure, David Mitchell. But not all of us see that blank page as a land of opportunity. Even the most imaginative, prolific writers will have a moment when they start to question whether they have anything worth saying.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, let\u2019s set a couple of ground rules.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First: you have plenty of material. That was the premise of Knausgaard&#8217;s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/OtS2\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My Struggle<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> series. Just by living, thinking and interacting, you\u2019re equipped with a dense network of things to write about. If you don\u2019t believe me (or Knausgaard), maybe you\u2019ll trust Walt Whitman. He wrote a poem on the subject, titled &#8216;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/poets.org\/poem\/there-was-child-went-forth-every-day\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There was a child went forth every day<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.&#8217; The moral of the tale is that you don\u2019t need to do much more than step outside the door. Your brain will do the rest. The important thing is to return to your desk daily to harvest the material.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Second: lower the stakes. To borrow a phrase from the artist William Kentridge, the writing desk is a \u201csafe space for stupidity.\u201d Kentridge also argues that we shouldn\u2019t worry about starting from a place of insincerity. You cannot write well until you allow yourself to write terribly. The good writers are simply those who stuck it out\u2014who trusted that the drivel would eventually be distilled, and they\u2019d be left with a lump of solid gold.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And now, for those exercises\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Lovely lists<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The cure for writing a little is writing a lot. Start with a list.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the writer Ray Bradbury was in his twenties, he developed an unusual technique inspired by the sight of a humble shopping list. He\u2019d start by writing a list of nouns\u2014any that came to mind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">THE LAKE. THE NIGHT. THE CRICKETS. THE RAVINE. THE ATTIC. THE BASEMENT. THE TRAPDOOR. THE BABY. THE CROWD. THE NIGHT TRAIN. THE FOG HORN. THE SCYTHE. THE CARNIVAL. THE CAROUSEL. THE DWARF. THE MIRROR MAZE. THE SKELETON.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And so on. It\u2019s important to note that the list was not the masterpiece itself, but the can opener which opened a can of worms. It was ok if the list was silly or derivative because, as Bradbury explained:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThese lists were the provocations, finally, that caused my better stuff to surface. I was feeling my way toward something honest, hidden under the trapdoor on the top of my skull.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, go open that trapdoor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Instagram it<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Social media isn\u2019t always a distraction. Use (with caution!) to help you source your next story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Depending on your degree of willpower, you may want to make a pact with yourself to limit the time spent browsing images. But, disclaimer aside, jump on Instagram now and choose three intriguing images. These images will form the beginning, the middle and the end of your story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Start by describing what you see in the first image. What kind of characters would inhabit that scene? Why are they there? What are they afraid of? What are they looking forward to? How do they feel about one another? Once you\u2019ve answered these questions, see if you can connect the scene to the second image\u2014or, you might find that your story is already taking you in another direction\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Organ voluntary<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When in doubt, listen to your body.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you\u2019re staring at that blank page, it can be hard to hear anything but the blood rushing in your ears. Or perhaps the sound of your headphones pounding to fill the silence. But while you wait for the muse to whisper in your ear, ask your body what it has to say. Choose an organ, any organ. Ask it how it feels living inside your body? Is it happy? Does it have any complaints? Would it prefer to be in a different body? Transcribe everything the organ says, word for word.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Take a hike<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The tried and tested method favored by the likes of Henry David Thoreau, Charles Baudelaire and Virginia Woolf.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Forget writing for the moment. Open the door, put one foot in front of the other, and repeat. Keep going. And every now and then, make a note of what you see. When you come back from your walk, gather those notes together and choose a particular observation that strikes you. Start by describing what you saw\u2014an ice cream cone splattered on the pavement, a bird\u2019s nest delicately balanced in a tree. What associations are prompted by this image? What does it make you think about the surrounding area, and your role as a walker? What does your observation say about you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Found poetry<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Good poets borrow, great poets steal.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sure. But they add a transformative touch of their own imagination. This exercise involves using a pre-existing text to generate your own.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Choose a book of prose, preferably one full of dense, interesting language\u2014I\u2019m thinking a Russian novel, or a book packed with neologisms like Aldous Huxley\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/yJq2UU\">Brave New World<\/a>.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Open at any page, and pick out the words or phrases that stand out to you. Now, choose a theme. What is it that you want to express\u2014feelings of love, sadness, frustration, uncertainty? Write the words down on a piece of paper and cut them into word tiles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now arrange the word tiles on a piece of paper, adding text in between to fill the gaps. So, the words EEL and HELLBENT might generate a phrase like: \u2018Oh eel of my heart, hellbent on slimy knees\u2019. Etc.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>A better yesterday<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another take on everyday experience.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What did you do yesterday? Is it worth writing about? If your answer is \u201cyes,\u201d great. If not, then try this. Imagine if your day yesterday was experienced by a character from one of your favorite books\u2014or even a movie or video game. How would they have experienced the day, and what would happen next?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The uninvited<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An exercise to practice generating tension.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No party is complete without a wicked fairy godmother. Imagine a scene at a party. Who\u2019s there, where is it, what are people wearing? Who\u2019s the host, and what is the premise of the party? Now\u2014a knock at the door. Who\u2019s there? Who would be the least welcome individual to arrive at this particular moment? Why? Who will open the door? What will happen next?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>N + 7<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A creative equation from \u2018the workshop of potential literature\u2019: a 1960s experiment.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here\u2019s another found poetry technique, borrowed from those masters of the bizarre, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oulipo\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oulipo<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014a group of French speaking writers and mathematicians who believed that rules and constraints allow for creative freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This technique involves taking a pre-existing poem, and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">substituting each noun with the one that occurs seven nouns away in the dictionary<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. OK, just read that twice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you don\u2019t have a dictionary (dictionaries are now an endangered species), then use this online<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spoonbill.org\/n+7\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">N + 7 generator<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. You can play strictly by the rules, or choose any alternative word of the same letter. So, if I\u2019m hungry, the line \u201cglazed with rain\u201d in William Carlos Williams\u2019 \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Red_Wheelbarrow\">The Red Wheelbarrow<\/a>\u2019 might become \u201cglazed with raisins.\u201d All of a sudden, it\u2019s a poem about a cinnamon roll.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The prophet on aisle 3<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A paradox to prompt a short story.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Imagine this. A prophet knows the exact time, date and circumstances of his death. He knows he will die of a heart attack, stretching to reach a can of beans on aisle 3 of his local supermarket. The problem is, for various reasons (tenure, tax reasons, an ailing mother), the prophet is obliged to stay in his hometown\u2014and visit the supermarket whenever he is in need of groceries. How does he feel each time he enters through the automatic doors and under the CCTV cameras? How do his shopping habits change over time? Does he try to subvert his fate?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Read all about it<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do as the screenwriters do\u2014cut out stories from the local paper.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Any writer worth their salt knows that reality is stranger than fiction. Your local paper\u2014the one that usually ends up mouldering outside your door\u2014is a treasure trove of premises. The filmmaker Pedro Almod\u00f3var is a fan of this technique, as was Charles Dickens. But if you\u2019re more of a digital native, you might prefer sourcing your material from a curated newsletter\u2014I recommend<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/publicdomainreview.org\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Public Domain Review<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/daily.jstor.org\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">JSTOR Daily<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.brainpickings.org\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brain Pickings<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Oh ugly<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A delightful exercise inspired by ugliness.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After a while, poets tire of writing about beauty. A good example is Shakespeare\u2019s<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/poets.org\/poem\/my-mistress-eyes-are-nothing-sun-sonnet-130\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sonnet 130<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014it was clearly much more fun to write about ugliness. Think of something fairly repulsive you\u2019ve seen, and describe it in detail. This exercise works best when you have some sympathy for the thing described. Can you write a beautiful poem or passage of prose inspired by ugliness?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Open house<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An exercise to help you establish the structure of your story.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The French have a phrase for the impulse to fill an awkward silence: \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">meubler le silence<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d which essentially means to fill an empty space with furniture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you have an idea for a story or you want to write a memoir piece, think about how you might construct the text like a house for the reader to walk through. It\u2019s essentially a way of making sure that you are keeping the reader in mind, and remembering that they are entering blind. Where would be the most logical place to locate the front door? What do they need to know when they enter the hall? How should they exit each room? Sarah Broom, author of the memoir <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/bup5oZ\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Yellow House<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is a fan of this technique. \u201cI saw the book as another kind of house,\u201d she writes. \u201cHow did I want the reader to pass through it? What room would they enter first, and how should that room feel?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Up in the old hotel<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Magic happens when you bring people together.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>Writers like Joseph Mitchell and Thomas Mann realized that hotels and hospitals offered the perfect premise for a story. Identify a location where many different types of people come together by chance\u2014that might be a shopping mall, a metro station, a laundromat or a down-at-heel beauty parlor. Who are the regulars? Why do they come here? Who\u2019s just passing through? How do these different characters relate to one another? What are they searching for?<\/p>\n<p><b>The long view<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Switch up your point of view.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Have you ever had the experience of feeling completely differently about a place when you see it from the window of a plane? An alternative perspective can provide new insights and questions, breathing life back into old subject matter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Try writing a poem about a familiar object or place, but imagine seeing your subject from the sky. How does it look from above? What can we learn from the birds?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>All grown up<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Imagine the later lives of your favorite children\u2019s book characters.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Remember the books you read as a child? Those were the stories that set the tone for your later life as a writer. But what have the characters been doing all this time? Where do they live now? Are they married, do they have pets? What is their taste in interior design? Have they done something terrible? Have they kept their childhood dreams?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>One small step<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Collecting moon litter to make literature.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing by NASA\u2019s Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left behind a series of footprints and an American flag\u2014and about<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/spacegrant.nmsu.edu\/lunarlegacies\/artifactlist.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">100 other objects<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Browse the online list (which includes a pair of space boots and a urine collection pot) and consider what confused moon beings might make of them. What could these objects be used for? How might they be interpreted?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Swan songs<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Poems in praise of endangered animals.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The UN recently reported that one million species are at risk of extinction. Take a look at this slideshow compiled by<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/environment\/2019\/05\/ipbes-un-biodiversity-report-warns-one-million-species-at-risk\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">National Geographic<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. What words would you use to describe the Bornean orangutan? What about the hawksbill sea turtle? Have you ever written a poem about a giant panda? Now is the time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Use any one of these exercises to fuel you during your next writing session. Whether you\u2019re artistically blocked and looking for inspiration, or just seeking a way to break the monotony of working on your latest manuscript, any of these exercises could provide that needed dose of inspiration.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A blank page is also a door \u2014 it contains infinity, like a night sky with a supermoon really close to the Earth, with all the stars and the galaxies, where you can see very, very clearly\u2026 You know how that makes your heart beat faster? \u2013 David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas Sure, David [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - 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