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…
Filed under exercises, Quickstart
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?
In the selection of quickstart ideas on this site, number five suggests writing a prose poem. This is a great form for those of you who have written stories and who want to try poetry, or those of you who’ve written poetry and who want to try something new. I wanted to use today’s post to explain prose poetry a little more…
Simply put, a prose poem is a poem that doesn’t have line breaks. It reads like prose on the page, but like poetry in the language used – think about rhythm, sound, internal rhyme, and imagery, just like you would if you were writing a poem.
When you’ve finished the prose poem read it outloud to yourself. Have you brought an image and an emotional truth together? Do you need to do this, do you think? Does the prose poem work for some reason that is hard to explain but you just know it does? If so, then you’ve done it, you’ve written a prose poem.
If I’ve got ten minutes, I chose a word from the dictionary and use it as a title for a prose poem. I try to let the words flow freely, I try not to get in the way of what I’m writing. I use the word and see if it brings an image to mind that I can capture on the page. Ten minutes isn’t enough to write a finished or polished piece, but it gives me a little writing time in an otherwise busy day.
Today, I’m packing to head on a four month trip. I look forward to writing lots, to taking some photos that’ll inspire you to write and to meeting readers and writers on the road. First stop, Toronto. Maybe I’ll have time to write a rough prose poem on the plane… now there’s an idea…
Filed under exercises, Places for writers, Quickstart
Writing Tips for Teens 