Tag Archives: exercise

Finding found poems

Go to your five favourite websites.  From each one take three sentences that stand out for you.

These are the words you’re going to use to put together your poem.  Take the words and shape them, wrestle with them, turn them into something new.  A found poem.

Take a look at poets.org to learn more about found poetry.  They sum up what you’re going to be doing with your three sentences from each website when they say ‘a found poem is the literary equivalent of a collage.’

So gather the words you’re going to use then put them together to create something new.  Let your imagination and your five favourite websites help you rewrite the world.

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A quickstart idea for today

Apparently, teenagers today (who live in Canada) have an excellent chance of living until they’re 100 years old.  I want you to image you’re 100 today.  It’s your birthday and you’re writing a diary entry for the day.  Think about what the world is like around you.  Think about the memories you have from your life.  Think about the regrets you have.

100 years.  What a life you’ve lived…

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A whole new design

I’m enjoying writing this blog so much that I’ve decided to get a web designer to help me put it all together so it works really well.  I want to have a section on how to get published, another quickstart set of tips, links to more writers and more thoughts about writing.  Plus, I’d like to do author interviews and photo prompts, alongside all the writer tips for you.

Today, I’m staying in a hotel in the centre of London.  London is my home town, so it’s the first time I’ve ever done this – looked at the city as a tourist might.  It’s been making me think about looking at stories from a new angle.  London is filled with tiny quirky streets, cobbled corners, busy cafes, packed galleries, and loads of pigeons.  As a tourist here, I’m noticing the details – details I often just take for granted as I rush about visiting one friend or the other, or trying to get work done.

How can you look at what you’re writing from a whole new angle?  You don’t have to stay in a fancy hotel in Soho (although, I admit, it’s pretty nice!) but perhaps you can try your story from a different character’s perspective.  Today, I’m looking at London as a tourist, perhaps I could look at London in my imagination through the eyes of one of those gallery goers, or even through the eyes of a pigeon! 

So, take one of you characters and rewrite a scene through their eyes.  What do you learn???

I’ll keep you posted on the new web design.

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Festival continued…

Great workshops with great kids.  We did some awesome travelling with out imaginations over the last couple of days and had many neat ideas on pages. 

One thing I was reminded of is that writing has to be fun!  Try writing a nonsense poem to help remind you of this – it doesn’t have to mean anything, just get some sounds and words down.

Nuf Evah (Have Fun!)

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Dubai

I’m here in Dubai awaiting the start of the Emirates Festival of Literature.  I’m here to teach a couple of workshops with teen writers in Dubai and I’m really looking forward to working with them. 

Whilst I’ve been here, I spent a couple of days in the desert, enjoying lots of empty space and rolling dunes from my window.  It got me thinking about writing and how sometimes you can stereotype place when you write about it.  The desert isn’t always hot and dry.  In the mornings, a heavy mist hangs over the sands, thickening the air.  The sky isn’t blue but hazy.  The sun when it heats up, feels so close that it’s heavy.  I wouldn’t have known any of these things if I hadn’t been in the desert myself.  Now, as writers, we can’t always go to the places we’re writing about – especially if it’s somewhere imaginary.  But we can do research.  We can read about places like the place we’re describing.  We can talk to people who have been there.  If it’s an imaginary place, we can research the realistic parts to make the imaginary parts feel more true.

That helps me not to stereotype descriptions of place when I’m writing. 

Here’s an exercise: take a few minutes every day or so to describe the weather and the sky in the place you’re in.  Really try and capture the essence of what you’re seeing, feeling, smelling… You’d be surprised – the sunset isn’t always orange, the morning isn’t often crisp…

Can you break those stereotypes?

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