Writing Exercises

I have started an online writing course this semester. So far, I really like it. We haven't done much yet--only read some texts and sent in a shorter essay about ourselves and our relationship to writing, and done some shorter, simpler writing exercises. But I love that I have been forced--or able--to make more time in my day for writing. I still think I need to do more of it, though.

I thought I could post some of my own writing execises here. Not the ones I'm submitting because I don't know, but some of the extra ones I do, mainly in order to keep my writing up and get used to eat and become better. So here is a short taste of what I write.

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These are two exercises/challenges I found on a blog.

1. Take a book, close your eyes, randomly select a word. In 10 minutes, write exactly 101 words about that word.

(I selected the word blood från The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, which I am reading at the moment--it's very helpful in the writing process too.)

I think my blood is infected with poison. When I am sad or anxious, I imagine the poison running through my veins. Blood reaches into every corner of my body. From outside, it brings oxygen, poisoned air, to my heart. There it is condensed and given a purpose: ‘Take it to the head, to the limbs.’ The blood carts the poison, which is enriched along the way, to the fingertips and the brain and the uterus. That blood is everywhere and I would have to empty myself to get all the poison out. (If I’d guess, the poison is merely life.)

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2. Pick a book and open a page at random. Take the first ten lines on the right-hand side and write down the first word of those lines. Write a poem or a story where every sentence starts with each of these words in order.

(I'll use the same book.)

Have a glass of water
And bread, coarse bread with nuts and grains
They are not much, but they will give you
Life
Must not, need not, have not, be not. I
Am
So much more.
And you are too. Eat the bread
Which is life-giving and true
The clarity of water will help, too.

(My words were not great. Here is another try with the same words. I cannot be bothered to edit.)

Have you ever felt the intimacy with someone reading on the train next to you? And felt almost proud when you, too, bring up a book. They exist in that book’s universe and you in yours. Life is lonely anyway, but next to each other, you and they are in parallel universes, less alone perhaps. Must not escape no, perhaps not. Am just passing time. So they read to pass time. And you read to escape. Which is not to say that is is working; that you actually do escape, or that time passes—but you pretend, with them. The universe is not only in this train, it is in your head and their heads and it is unlimited.

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