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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A Collection of Quotes That I Will at Some Point Post on My Tumblr or, Why Is This so Unbearable?

“Listen to me. I’m shy. I’m not stupid. I can’t meet people’s eyes. I don’t know if you understand what that’s like. There’s a whole world going on around me, I’m aware of that. It’s not because I don’t want to look at you, Lucinda. It’s that I don’t want to be seen. I’m afraid of what you’ll see inside me.”
— Jonathan Lethem


“With special regard to unreality, I shrug in silence. I am not scared. I love this fully conscious imprisonment in unreality; it somehow makes me romanticize with something sensuously genuine. Oh it’s another self-trap; you know best. Yet there is something very consoling, very personal in it. I am constructing my reality with unreal, otherworldly materials. It is almost poetic; this outstanding self-manipulation. (I am rather scared to death.)”
— Sylvia Plath, Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963


“My dear, you are in danger of being burned by your own flame.”
— Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit


“Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” You’ll be embarrassed to answer. Then remind yourself that past and future have no power over you. Only the present.”
— Marcus Aurelis, The Meditations


“I am aware of myself. And, of course, the only things that are aware of themselves and conscious of their individuality are irritated eyes, cut fingers, sore teeth. A healthy eye, finger, tooth might as well not even be there. Isn’t it clear that individual consciousness is just sickness?”
— Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

Goodreads list

I'm currently in the middle of long-and-slow move into a student flat, as well as working full time, which means I don't have a whole lot of time. I think I'll have more time this weekend; until then, I have a Goodreads book list I wanted to finish.

What was the last book you marked as "read"?
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (my yearly, this-time-fifth re-read)

What are you "currently reading"?
Girl Reading by Katie Ward, which I just started, and Helen Mort's poetry collection Pint For the Ghost

What was the last book you marked as "to read"?
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - suggested by one of the friends I visited Scotland (and Culloden) with.

What book do you plan on reading next?
I only have a few of my unread books not stored beneath my bed, so the next one will probably be a collection of Jane Austen's early and unfinished writing. I have a few poetry books as well, which I'm hoping to trick myself into reading by leaving them out.

Are you doing a 2014 Reading Challenge?
I am! Not a very trying one because I'll have school reading (which is usually fiction, though). I did 52 books, one per week, but I think I will surpass it. But I do want to re-read some books as well.

Do you have a wish-list?
YES. I'm looking forward so much to buying Anne Carson's Glass, Irony and God. I read one of the poems slash essays in it, the one about Emily Dickison, and it was the best thing I have read this year. I can't with words explain how glorious it was. So I need to have it my hand and touch the words and also read the rest of the collection.

What book do you plan on buying next?
Probably the previously mentioned one. I don't want to buy anymore books since I bought so many (too many) in England when I lived there. And by the end of summer I'll have to buy a ton of books for school (which is not too difficult when you're studying English).

Do you have favourite quotes on Goodreads?
I do, but far from all of them or even my favourites. I'm annoyed with the fact that they very rarely have my favourite quotes from the books there.

Who are your favourite authors?
Currently (and always?) Donna Tartt, Virginia Woolf, Diana Wynne Jones, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath and Melina Marchetta to a name a few.

Have you joined any groups?
Yes, but I'm not active in any of them.


My Goodreads is here.