Writing Exercise:
purpose: to practice randomness in structure.
The exercise: Tell a story using only 26 sentences. The first sentence has to begin with a word that begins with A. The second begins with a word that begins with B. Continue to Z.
I think a writer works hard and writes a lot and thinks a lot about writing to get to a place where, when he or she writes, he or she DOES NOT think. I'm going to go all Zen here and say that when you write you have to be the story. That means that all you've learned goes into your story, but when you're writing it you don't think about these learned things because you're doing. It's like I've said before when comparing writing to martial arts. If you think, you're too late to react. Writing is like that. If you think, you aren't in the moment of the story. (Revision is another beast entirely!)
Here's an excellent video (from WritingAlchemy) that mentions Bradbury who said he had a piece of paper taped over his workspace that said DON' THINK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnVPFPCuuJc
Published on September 21, 2013 06:08