Take a piece of prose writing by a favorite author of which you are particularly fond. You will need a largish paragraph with which to work for this exercise; and you may want to try it more than one time, so multiple copies would be beneficial too. Scan through the paragraph circling every third word. Take a look at the words that you circled. Do you see a theme emerge? Try again. Scan through a new copy of the paragraph circling every fourth word. Any themes? Try a scan of every fifth word. You get the idea.
This is a fantastic exercise for writing poems and songs, as it narrows the focus beginning with a topic that one finds interesting. Sometimes, when writing, it is difficult to turn the focus of a piece outward since we are comfortable writing from the inside out. This helps the writer center a piece around a focus that is foreign to the ego, yet holds some connection for the intellect.
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4 comments:
I like this one. Now I need to find that piece of prose. Hmmm....
Hey, this looks intriguing. I'm far from being a writer (and have no intentions of learning:) but creatively and experientially I'm all ovuh dis idea.
Thank you.
You would be surprised what you come out with when you try these writing exercises. Even if you don't write stories or creatively, these exercises are meant to generate ideas. You can even use them for art projects, photography, or other creative endeavors. Have fun, ladies!
K ... I tried this .. I was going to post my results ...but I just saw a bunch of words ... no theme .... so I started cheating, and changing which word I circled, so I'd end up with the words that fit the preconceived notions in my head ... um ... gonna try another exercise now ...
Lara
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