Stormy Weather

Write about your, or your fictional characters', experience in a blizzard, hurricane, ice storm, or earthquake. Trying times stretch nerves and reveal personality traits. Use dialogue, sensory detail, and take readers into the eye of the storm.

You Wore It Well!

Write about your memories of a specific piece of clothing (yours or some else’s): shopping for it or creating it or lending or borrowing it or laundering it or wearing it, or.... Maybe it was a uniform, a prom dress, a wedding gown, a tuxedo, a beloved pair of jeans or trench coat. Maybe you hated it. Maybe you loved it. Maybe it was forced upon you by someone else; maybe you chose it.

Where I'm From

This wonderful resource is from George Ella Lyon. Read all about it on her web site: 
www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html

Directions: Read this poem by George Ella Lyon and write your own “Where I’m From” piece! Combine details of both places and characters. Use format shown here or write it as prose. Enjoy! Discover!

Where I’m From

By George Ella Lyon*

I am from clothespins,

from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.

I am from the dirt under the back porch.

(Black, glistening

it tasted like beets.)

I am from the forsythia bush,

the Dutch elm

whose long gone limbs I remember

as if they were my own.

I am from fudge and eyeglasses,

from Imogene and Alafair.

I'm from the know- it-alls

and the pass- it-ons,

from perk up and pipe down.

I'm from He restoreth my soul

with cottonball lamb

and ten verses I can say myself.

I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch,

fried corn and strong coffee.

From the finger my grandfather lost

to the auger

the eye my father shut to keep his sight.

Under my bed was a dress box

spilling old pictures.

a sift of lost faces

to drift beneath my dreams.

I am from those moments --

snapped before I budded --

leaf- fall from the family tree.

* © George Ella Lyon, where i'm from, where poems come from, published by Absey & Company, Spring, Texas, 1999. http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html

I was so worried and then...

Write about a time when you were relieved to discover your worries were groundless...at least for awhile.

Handedness (not for the ambidextrous)

Remember learning to write, i.e print? Recapture the feeling by picking up a pencil and printing your name on lined paper, using the opposite hand from the one you usually use. Stay within the lines! Try writing a sentence.


Now describe the experience, writing as you usually do, by hand on the computer. 


My great aunt by marriage broke her right arm in her late 80s and taught herself to write legibly with her left hand.What a lesson in adaptability and determination! Thanks, Aunt Berta!

Back Then

10, 20, 30....50 Years Ago

Where were you?

Who were you?

What were you wearing?

What were you listening to?

What were you driving?

Write for ten minutes and give us a glimpse of you in July, 2001, 1991, 1981...1961!

Defining Moments from The Accidental Novelist

THE EXERCISE

1) Make a list of the 10 Defining Moments of your life or your character’s  life.

2) From each moment, write at least 3 IMAGES that go with that moment. SEE it happening, as if on a movie screen.

example:

Father’s suicide: briefcase, crystal bird, open door to balcony
Ran away from home: black limousine, red “otel” sign, stained carpet
Met Gary on-line: library, broken blue umbrella, wet streets
etc.

3) Now, for each defining moment, show us what happened. Write a paragraph or two. Make sure to SHOW the story, don’t explain what happened. Do it in visuals. It will make it more “real” in your mind if you can see it. And showing in your writing is always good practice.

You can tell it in 3rd person OR 1st person, writing as the character.

 http://theaccidentalnovelist.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/weekend-writing-workout-defining-moments-part-ii-character-development/