Walking words

TASK Go for a walk, taking a pen and paper with you. Make it a reasonably brisk walk, using a regular pace that you can maintain for 10 minutes or longer. As you walk, write a story in your head, beginning with the words "As she walked...". When you've finished walking, begin to write down your story, allowing it to evolve. An alternative method of doing this exercise is to speak your "story" into a recording device as you walk, transcribing it later.

Taste

In June, we had a go at writing about the experience of eating chocolate. Today's exercise involved tasting a lolly of your own choosing. The only proviso is it probably shouldn't involve chocolate. (If this breaks your heart, you can always go back and do the June exercise.) TASK Escort your chosen lolly into a quiet place. Remove the wrapper. Sit back and enjoy, considering how it tastes, feels, moves in your mouth. Now begin to write, with the words "He tried to hide but...."

It's a dog's life

Dogs live in the moment. No back story, no grudges held, no huge processing of what someone really meant when they said THAT..... TASK Can we write like dogs think? As in, only of the moment. Nothing reminds you of something; nothing is LIKE something else, it just is. Give it a go, and feel free to follow where your words take you....

John Mayer

I'm having a John Mayer day today. No wonder the ladies (at least initially) like him! He writes with insight and vulnerability. As a fan once said, "Mayer speaks my mind". Let's look at one of his recent numbers, "Whisky Whisky Whisky". It's the chorus that gets me. "Whisky, whisky whisky, water, water, water, sleep." Says it all really, doesn't it? TASK Have a listen to the song and use the mood and feel as a jumping off point for your own piece, wherever that might take you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6_MnxwLie8

Humour and dialogue

I went to see Fiona O'Loughlin at the Regal last night. Funny woman. It got me thinking about humour, and how you DO humour in writing. One way to start is to translate something/body that made you laugh in real life into a piece of written dialogue. TASK Whatever it was that got your funny bone working, write this up as a short dialogue between two imagined characters. Feel free to set the scene, but make your piece mostly about dialogue. For instance: "I'm cold." Sam was always cold, thought Mary. "So put on a jumper, you dill," she said, without any great malice. "But it's my feet." Jesus. It was always his bloody feet. Mary's shoulders sank about a metre. "Socks, Sam! Ever heard of socks!" etc. etc. Allow yourself to stay with the scene, feeling your way into what these imaginary characters would say. Don't worry too much about "he said, she said". You can the assignment of who said what later when you're in editor mode.

Feature writing

One of the challenges facing creative writers is how to make money from their work. For me, the solution is to write feature articles for quality magazines. In journalism, the facts are paramount and the writer is invisible. In feature writing,  the writer relates similar factual information, but gets to clothe it in the sort of creatively emotive and observational detail denied a newspaper journalist.  TASK Choose a topic and research it, writing down half a dozen (or so) facts you think people may be surprised by or interested in. Spend 10 minutes weaving these facts into half a dozen (or so) paragraphs of a feature story.  If you'd like to see one of my own published feature articles, email me. It's free.

Darkness

Darkness has an energy all its own. Often, darkness is used in horror movies as a device to create fear of the unknown. Yet darkness can be beautiful, too. TASK Sit in a room at night with the lights turned off. with your eyes open. Consider this new world for five minutes or so. What can you see? Or perhaps more significantly, what CAN'T you see? What's hiding out there in the shadows? And how does it feel, sitting there in the dark? Where do your thoughts go? Write for 10 minutes on what you discovered, beginning with the words "Who would have thought...."

Describing the normal

You have a friend who has been blind since birth. As an adult, they ask you to tell them about  the things they will never see. TASK Choose three or four or five entities – your fingers, the sky, a baby, snow – and spend 10 minutes writing about them in a way that someone without sight can relate to.

Gender games

I watched an interesting remake of a well-known musical video today. The original male lead had been replaced by a female, while the semi-naked ladies strutting around in the original had also changed gender.  I was struck by the different emotional energy that resulted from these role changes. Whereas the semi-naked ladies seemed (to me) to embody an air of arrogance and confidence, the semi-naked men seemed weak and rather foolish. Which got me thinking about how gender impacts upon our writing. TASK Spend five or so minutes writing about your day in the third person - ie use "she" if you're a woman; "he" if you're a guy. When you've finished, read back through your story (or whatever it has become) and swap the point of view to the opposite gender. What does this gender shift do to your story?

Heaven scent

Smell isn't the most written-about of our senses. Yet it conveys a sense of place that's invaluable in good story telling. So let's give it a go! TASK Take yourself into a room in your home. Close your eyes for a few minuts and allow yourself to notice the smells drifting around the room. Now open your eyes and take a sensory journey around the room, stopping to smell items. Write for 10 minutes about the experience.

A different perspective

One of the challenges as a writer is to keep ones work fresh and interesting. A simple way to do this is to put yourself in someone, or something, else's shoes.  I want you to choose the body you will be seeing and feeling the world through. Choose someone (or something, as in perhaps a dog or cat) close to you, so that you can write confidently about their environment and experiences. Think about a recent interaction involving them, and retell it AS them. You might be surprised at what comes out!

A letter to someone you don't like

Love letters, even Like letters, are too damned easy! TASK I want you to write a DISlike letter, a hate letter, even. Someone, somewhere, has earned your negativity, so write to them a about it! Don't hold back. Give it to them with both barrels. Get it out! After all, you won't be sending it......will you? :)

Friends

I've just spent three days with a bunch of really lovely folk that I met through music. Every one of them has a gentle heart and a ready smile. At night, we sat around on cushions and listened as one or more of us performed our own songs. Sometimes I listened, sometimes I performed. TASK Think about a memorable time you've spent with friends lately and write about it for 10 minutes, beginning with the words "We came together...."

Writing about food

I have been writing restaurant reviews for money for more than a decade. Often, the food is average. Rarely, it's damned wonderful. When was the last really good meal you ate? What did you drink? How did your surroundings augment or detract from the experience? TASK Regardless of whether you were at home or out, spend 10 minutes writing a review of your meal for a publication of your choice.

Rain

It rained on me today. I was out walking in Lamington National Park. I like rain. How it taps gently on my shoulder and dances on the leaves. If rain were a person, what would s/he be like? TASK Explore te personification of rain in your writing for 10 minutes, beginning with the words "From the clouds he came...."

Age

I played the very mad card game Bolivia with my Auntie Ann in Brisbane today. Annie is in her 70s, has secondary cancer in her bones and lives life to the full. When I get old(er) I would like to be just like her: full of opinions, love, laughter and kindness. My bootscooting auntie even went white water rafting last year. What a gal. TASK Write for 10 minutes about an older person you know or know of. Feel free to veer off into fiction as the mood takes.

Flying high

Flying. In a plane. To where? Somewhere nice? Somewhere dangerous? You look out of your window and see....what? TASK Explore this topic in writing for 10 minutes.

Haiku heaven

Haiku come in many shapes and forms. The one we're going to explore is the 5-7-5 format, where the first line has five syllables, the second seven and the last five.  The Japanese tradition is to create a scene, often a scene in nature, with the first two lines, and then add a juxtaposed image or statement at the end. For instance, "The sun crept silent/Trees stretch dark limbs to the sky/My feet grow colder".  TASK Spend 10 minutes exploring this format.

Point of view

Changing point of view is a wonderful way of adding new energy and thoughtfulness to your writing. TASK Write for 10 minutes on any topic you like, but make it in the first person, i.e., from your own point of view. Once you've completed your writing, go through it and change the point of view to third person - i.e., he or she. As an example, if your original first person piece included a sentence that read "I walked to the shops", your revised sentence in third person would read "he (or she, depending on what you feel is more appropriate) walked to the shops". Note what a difference it makes to the feel of the piece, and what freedoms/restrictions it imposes on your work.

To B or not to B.

Not such a hard task, this. TASK Write for 10 minutes without the letter B. Your topic is "Cows".

Talk it dont write it

Hopefully you have some kind of recording device. This exercise is aimed at helping you explore a narrative without being fettered by having to write it down. Some people write whole books this way! TASK Find a comfortable spot for you and your iphone, voice recorder or whatever, set the alarm for 10 minutes, close your eyes and think for a moment about the joy of warmth. Begin your recording with the words "Being warm is...". Don't rush it, but try and keep the flow of words going. Remember, this isn't a performance. Listen back and transcribe anything that could be useful.

Tired writing

We've given morning writing a go, but what about bedtime writing? I know! It's almost too horrible to contemplate! But give it a try and see what it does to your creative brain. Perhaps, like a small child, you will be sharper but less tolerant as you grow tired. TASK Once you're in bed, write for 10 minutes beginning with the words "My eyes are..."

The S word

Of all the non-vowel letters in the alphabet, surely S is the one we would most miss if we couldn't use it in our writing? Well, you're about to find out. TASK Write for 10 minutes without using the letter S, beginning "Only rich men know....."

Clouds

Find a comfy place to lie down out of doors on a cloudy day. TASK Consider those clouds. What stories do they tell? What hides behind them? Where did they come from? Write for 10 minutes, beginning with the words "The cloud in question was not..."

Laughter

Laugh out loud, go on. Now do it again. TASK For 10 minutes, write a detailed description of that laugh of yours, beginning "My laugh is...." and going wherever the writing takes you.

Find a tree

Find yourself a tree and stand beneath its spreading limbs. Lean against its trunk. Touch it, smell it, feel its vast there-ness against your body. Close your eyes and imagine something that happened right here. What was it? TASK Write for 10 minutes, beginning with the words "The tree..."

Dance me

In the lyrics below, Leonard Cohen uses the verb "Dance" to write about love:
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love.
TASK Using this same verb, write your own poem or letter, addressing it to someone you wish you saw more of.

Jewellery

Choose a piece of your jewellery and consider it for a moment. Then imagine it belongs to someone else. What is its significance? TASK Write for 10 minutes, beginning "It felt....."

Colouring in

Choose a colour. What does it signify for you? TASK Write for 10 minutes on this topic.

Flying high

Who hasn't dreamt at some time in their lives of flying above the treetops like a bird (as opposed to in a plane)? Or perhaps you've climbed a national monument, looked over the edge and wondered how it would be to simply jump off and fly away..... TASK Write for 10 minutes on the experience of flying, beginning with the words, "Up here...."

Soundscape

Close your eyes for a few minutes and just listen. TASK Use this detailed soundscape as a basis for a 10 minute piece of writing beginning "The first sound she noticed..."