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?

I’ve just finished reading The Everafter by Amy Huntley . The main character, Madison, is dead and she finds her way back to her life through the objects she lost when she was alive. It’s a romance, a mystery and a thoughtful book about letting go.

What objects make you reflect on your life?  Could you chose one object and write about the memory you have because of it?  Where does it come from?  What does it make you feel?  Can you write the memory down using all your senses, like Amy Huntley does, to really bring that moment back to life?

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.

1. There are no rules of form or rhyme.
2. Think about an image that makes you want to write. Why does it?
3. Keep in mind, you’re writing the poem in sentences and fragments of sentences but you don’t have to think about punctuation.
4. As you write, use language that is poetic – can you find internal rhymes or rhythms to make the words sing?

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…