Teachers Write! 6/5 Tuesday Quick-Write
First of all, I have to tell you that you are amazing. I’m away at BEA in New York this week but came back to my hotel room late Monday night and read your posts and your commitments to make writing time, and I’m so, so excited. (I might have teared up a little, too. Collectively, the 700+ of you are a serious inspiration!) I’ll be commenting more later in the week, but for now, I just wanted to say to all of you….well…wow. Well done walking that walk.
So…let’s get on with Day Two, shall we? On Tuesdays & Thursdays during Teachers Write! Virtual Summer Writing Camp, I’ll be sharing quick-write prompts, designed to get you free-writing for a few minutes in response to a question or idea. These can be used as a simple free-write, brainstorming, warm-up activity OR as a way to deepen your thinking about a work-in-progress. Got your keyboard or pencil ready?
Tuesday Quick-Write:
Write for two minutes to describe a very specific place. If you’re just free-writing, it can be a place that you love, or have visited, or a place that frightens you.
This is one of my favorite places (which also happens to frighten me sometimes), the Florida Everglades.
Anyplace is fine. If you want to relate this to your work-in-progress, choose a very specific setting within the piece and imagine yourself there.
When your two minutes are up, stop writing.
Now…if your place is real and you can go there, go there now. I’ll wait….
If it’s far away, find a picture of it. If it’s not a real place, put yourself there in your mind. Now write for one minute about each of the following:
Everything you SEE – Pay attention to big things and tiny things. Search for concrete details.
Everything you HEAR – Be specific. Don’t just say “a scraping sound.” Say a “high-pitched, raspity-raspity-screeeeeaking noise.” You can make up words if you want.If you aren’t in the place, try to find a video. Or guess what you might hear.
Everything you SMELL – Especially pay attention to the smells that surprise you. If you’re not in the place, pictures can help you smell. Look carefully…what would that dumpster smell like?
Everything you FEEL – Weather, wind, things that land on you or brush against you. Again – pictures help you imagine if you’re not there, and if it’s not a real place, try imagining images and then assigning sensations from a similar place that might be real (desert, tundra, etc.)
Now, go back and rewrite that descriptive paragraph. Include your best tiny, surprising details, and work on senses other than sight. Better? More vivid? This is a fun activity to do with kids, too. Have them write about the playground or gym or cafeteria; then go there and hunt for sensory details!
Feel free to share your final paragraph in the comments if you’d like! I’m busy at BEA in New York through tonight but will check in to read from the airport if I can, and you can cheer one another on, too!
.
newest »
I’m not a bold hiker. I’m a lazy walker, someone who looks for the path of least resistance, stopping frequently along the way to rest and marvel, hoping for a glimpse of a woodland creature. I’d stop when I’d hear the rustle of branches in anticipation, but the forest was so thick, that had something been there, it stayed hidden. This wooded path had a gentle slope, but even still I knew I would be huffing and puffing on my return. But for now it was paradise. The day was pristine, with a smattering of cotton-ball clouds in the sky and temperatures that warranted only a tee shirt and jeans. In fact, I could have gotten away with shorts, but ticks lurked in forests such as this, so the jeans were a matter of self-preservation.
I’m also not a bold hiker because I am absolutely petrified of snakes, and I feared finding one on the overgrown path. Snakes are not what I would call a woodland creature. They are demons. Invaders of my dreams. The devil in his true flesh. My fear of snakes has grown to a phobia, but it isn’t unreasonable. Oh no! There are definitely reasons for this fear, and their names are Raymond, Jeffrey, Gregory and Gary, my four older brothers. As an attempt to rid themselves of their pesky little sister, they tormented me in my young life with every snake they could find, and usually those were here in Vermont when we came up on vacation. I was known by every dog in the county for my screams when a snake was near.
But I was trying to be bold now, “Don’t look down,” I told myself – keep your eyes ahead.” I walked on, proud of myself for venturing out, and feeling a special connection to this land that I hoped would someday be mine.