Blog 97 – 10 Ways to Kick Start Your Writing Day …by Ms Paige Turner
This is the first of a four part series of features I have written for New London Writers.
You may be working on an autobiography, a novel, a script or collection of poetry and short stories. So these forty ‘kick start’ exercises are divided into:
a) Personal Experience – all about you.
b) Novel Ideas and Encouraging Dialogue – all about your fiction.
c) Firing the Mind: lateral thinking exercises for ways into poetry and short stories – all about new ideas.
d) Keeping the Policeman/woman outside of the Study – all about the editor inside of you. (He’s a friend but needs to know who is boss today.)
Make it only seven minutes worth of hors d’oeuvres writing if you are involved with an ongoing project. Time yourself and get back to your main oeuvre. Don’t judge. Just write. Keep the pen moving on the paper or keep the fingers typing. It’s important to keep the mind and hand (s) moving and not push The Muse too hard.
Your Personal Experience
1. You have a memory store: a landscape where your past history sits waiting for you to re-discover. Describe that memory store. Is it a memory box or a bag or a place? What colour is it? Is there a fragrance? What sounds can you hear and what is the texture of that store? Are there any tastes from your past you have forgotten and if so, why?
2. What is your earliest memory of reading? Who were you with? What were you doing? What were you feeling?
3. Repeat this exercise with your earliest memory of speaking.
4. And your earliest memory of writing? (Have you made any discoveries about how you react to the spoken or written word?)
5. At random, take a photo and an object which belong to you. Find a connection and write about it. A theme should emerge.
6. Take one of your past or present pets’ names as a Christian name and your mother’s maiden name as a surname and write a physical description of that person.
7. What were you doing five years ago?
8. Where do you want to be in five years time?
9. List the ten best moments of your life. Where were you and why were they so good?
10. List six turning points in your life. Where were you and what did they change about you?
You can catch the other three features on:
http://www.newlondonwriters.com
So check New London Writers out.