Welcome to the April Muse Exercise. If you're joining us for the first time this month, you might want to review Muse Exercises from the past:
Awakening Your Muse - Why write muse exercisesFebruary Muse Exercise - Muse Writing Guidelines: "The Rules"March Muse Exercise - Writing By Hand
Muse exercises are all about giving your muse room to play without pressure or structure. It's not about creating beautiful, fabulous prose. It's not even about writing something presentable ("Kiss Your Frogs" - see February). In muse writing, you're giving yourself permission to turn off your inner editor, to stretch your creative muscle, look for new word connections, experiment, and allow yourself to fail.
In the past, I've included two exercises, plus some extra prompts, in the one muse exercise post for the month. This month I'm trying something new by breaking up the two muse exercises - posting one at the beginning of the month, and one mid-month.
Last month we practiced writing by hand. Many of you mentioned that you found this experience freeing - that your writing was different writing by hand. I thought this month we'd shake it up again.
Where do you usually write? At your desk? At the kitchen table? Sitting in bed? Grab your notebook and pen - we're moving.
Writing someplace unfamiliar allows you to experience your surroundings with a new eye. In unfamiliar surroundings, you're more likely to notice sounds, smells, tastes, lighting, people, movement, weather, temperature, colors, traffic, textures. Details.
Fresh Images:Find someplace new to write. Use a room in your house you don't normally frequent - the guest room, living room, furnace room. Go outside. Go to a cafe, a park, the zoo, a bus stop, the laundrymat, the library, a bookstore, a playground, a bench at the mall, the food court, in your car while waiting to pick the kids up from school. Use your imagination. But go someplace new.
Study your surroundings for 5 minutes. Look for the details noted above, and anything else that catches your attention. Really study your surroundings. Look at it from different angles - stand up, sit down. What's far away? What's close? What can you see from the corner of your eye. What's within reach? What do you wish you could touch, feel? What's in the corners? On the ceiling (or in the sky)? What's hidden under or behind other items? Plug your ears - what do you see now? What do you notice when you can hear again?
Write for 10 minutes. Describe your surroundings. Put down everything you remember. If you run out of things to say, check the details in the list above, and ask yourself more questions. Don't stop to re-read or edit. Just write.
Review your writing. Did you make an interesting or unique observations? Interesting word phrases? Were the descriptions near the end (when you were struggling to find more to write about) more unique than at the beginning? What was the most unusual thing you noticed?
Now write a scene. This could be something related to your work-in-progress, or you could pick from one of the prompts below, or just write something that strikes you. Try to include as many of the descriptions and senses as you can from your previous writing. Write for 10 minutes only.
Look over your writing and notice anything new or interesting you wrote. What stood out? If you'd like to share your writing, or just an interesting phrase or observation, feel free. No obligations. Good luck!
***
Need some additional ideas to keep you going this month? Go back and try February or March Exercises using new words, or choosing a different prompt. Or try one of these (from A Writers Book of Days, by Judy Reeves):
Jenny
The Writer's Road
Dear Jenny,
I normally write on my computer which is in my room and I moved to the bathroom--not joke! <g> Sometimes I learn there, because it's so quiet and nobody disturbs you there--and today I wrote there. I picked the point where we should write something with stealing something. That's what came out (today it's late but tomorrow I'll try the others too); nothing special but a little piece that I like <g> Here is it:
„You’re crazy! You’re insane, you’re an idiot and after this you’ll be dead!“ I looked at him and tried to stare him down like he did when I was doing something wrong. Too bad that it didn’t work! „I won’t get killed and you know that. I just need this book—and I won’t steal it. I’ll just going to borrow it without the owner’s knowledge. After [name] copied it I’ll give it back. Don’t worry!“ I raised an eyebrow. „The last time you told me not to worry, your whole body was bruised and you were sick for two weeks and acted like a baby! So don’t tell me not to worry when you’re going to steal something.“ I made a gesture and went on saying that he’d be then a thief; not trust-worthy anymore.. And what did he? He shrugged grinning, gave me a kiss and went on.
Sarah
Dear All: I'll attach the file and also paste it here.
April 08 Muse Exercise
By: Jacelya Jones
Baine Before…
After studying my surrounding for 5 minutes, looking for details, I wrote for 10 minutes, describing what I saw. The most unique observation was of our oriental carpet, which I described as having a “faded blood and flower print”. The most interesting word phrase was “[a] window—long and segmented [that] framed a many-years old tree, portrait style”.
Then, I wrote a scene for my WIP character, Baine—one about a happier time in one of his past lives. I used the descriptions from my initial ‘surroundings’ exercise. I highlighted in red the descriptions taken from that exercise that I incorporated into the scene. See below:
*****
He remembered the egg shell white vomit of a spot. Maybe his babies had done that. They—one of his babies—had probably had something to do with the Lilliputian splashing of creamy paint at the base of the brick fireplace they had had. The couch had always somehow managed to find itself at the wrong angle across the faded blood and flower print of their too-thin, fringed carpet. The wood planks of the floor had been handsome, but were old. And moisture and age had begun to make them gap and spread. They needed softening. Tite, his wife…. Wife was saying too little of what she had been to him. It told little of the story of the things she had to make his life what it had been—nearly perfect.
He remembered his baby, Camuh, sitting with her rings and tower next to him. The rounded edges of the puzzle mat upon which he sat to play with her needed cleaning. Camuh, his youngest baby, had been 16 months, nearly 17, and decided if the yellow ring should go on before or after the green and pink one. He remembered the psychedelic flowers—flowers everywhere had been Tite’s doing—next to the stacked black accessories above and beneath the wine-colored wood of a dusty table. No matter how much Tite cleaned, and she seemed to him to always be cleaning, cooking, nursing, smiling…. Smiling….
Nothing was clean in a home with children. A window—long and segmented—ran along the back wall their home. It framed a many-years old tree, portrait style. Potted…. – Ran out of time.
Jay,
I moved your exercise into the Muse Exercise thread. I think (and Jenny will correct me if I'm wrong, in which case your post can be detached and restored to its former position <g>) that Muse exercises are normally confined to a single thread, whereas with the official monthly exercises, each member is allowed her own thread. This is not immediately intuitive to a newcomer, so don't fret yourself about having "done something wrong." :) You're fine, and we're glad to have you here.
~Beth
Visit The Stone River
Hi Jenny,
Haven't time to read the other responses just now, I'll check in later, but thought I'd toss mine out here.
I headed off to the town library yesterday. What I learned was that the library is an extraordinarily noisy place. I haven't read over what I wrote, but I do know that I learned ugly parts can make up a lovely whole.
This morning I wrote in my usual place, but took the prompt of "My father's hands". These are not my father's hands, as it turns out, but they did belong to a relative.
Hands Copyright 2008 Kathleen Horrigan
My father’s hands are uneven. One hand is whole, with squarish nails that he keeps meticulously clean with his jackknife. The other hand, the right hand, is missing the tips of four fingers. The ends are shiny, slightly rounded. These fingers do the same work as the others, and if you do not look closely, if there is no good reason to wonder at their shortness, you might miss the detail of the missing parts.
Those fingertips left him in a threshing machine accident. It happened long before I was born, and that was all I was ever told about it. The lesson was there, though, of the dangers of fast-moving belts, of using body parts to free jammed machinery, of reaching too far into the gaping maw of technology. A healthy respect, and not a little fear, when I thought of it. My brothers were the same.
Most of the time, though, I thought nothing of those missing parts. They were just part of what was my father: no different than the smoothness of his eyebrows, or the crookedness of his nose.
My father never showed any fear. He was a farmer, and used his machines as comfortably as my mother used her knives, her pots and her pans, her oven with its stunning degrees of temperature. He was casual with baler, combine, PTO shafts.
Kathleen
Dear Sarah: I really like the first line. It makes a reader wonder: What kind of book is it - that just copying it is an act that could mean death to the copier?! Sounds like and interaction between a lovable rogue and the woman who reluctantly loves him. Good.
Dear Kathleen: This is my favorite part of the exercise: <My father’s hands are uneven. One hand is whole, with squarish nails that he keeps meticulously clean with his jackknife. The other hand, the right hand, is missing the tips of four fingers. The ends are shiny, slightly rounded. These fingers do the same work as the others, and if you do not look closely, if there is no good reason to wonder at their shortness, you might miss the detail of the missing parts.>
It says as much about your 'father' - painting such a vivid picture - as it does about the observer; only a loving observer woud 'miss the detail of the missing parts'. Very good.
Dear Jay,
Thank you! <g> Glad that you see that she loves him--even when he drives her mad. <g>
Hi Sarah,
I'd love to have some sort of waterproof writing system...it always seems like the best ideas hit me in the shower <g>.
Hi Jay,
Nice to meet you! Thanks for your kind comments on my exercise.
Now, on to yours...I liked how you showed how you incorporated the gems into your wip. My favourites: <egg shell white vomit of a spot>, <Lilliputian splashing of creamy paint at the base of the brick fireplace> , <faded blood and flower print>
By the way, a house with kids _can_ be clean...if you evacuate them, clean it, and enjoy the cleanliness...until they inevitably return.<g>
Dear Kathleen,
Haha! <g>
Hi Everyone!
Sorry I've been AWOL. It's been a crazy couple of days. You may have noticed I didn't post an example this month when I posted the exercise. Have you ever just gotten fixated on something and couldn't let it go? I could have written in the living room, or on the front porch, or at the local cafe, or... but I knew I was taking my aunt to the airport today and I just couldn't get it out of my head that it'd be a great place to do this exercise. And I did.
I am not an infrequent flier. I generally fly at least twice a year, and used to travel quite a bit for my job. The most interesting part of this exercise for me is that my experience today - the things I observed and wrote, were not at all what I would have remembered and wrote if I'd tried to do this from my desk. I think this is an important lesson. If at all possible, go see what you want to write about. If you can't go to the exact location, go experience something similar. I was thinking about my suggested example of writing in the furnace room of my house, and thinking - that might be somewhat like writing in a cave. Cold, dark, crumbly walls. Could be interesting.
Anyway...attached is what I wrote.
Beyond the difference between what I would have remembered and written, the interesting thing I found in my piece was the contrasts, or as I describe in my piece, the "nots". "The airport today is a study in nots. People are not in a hurry. The sun is not shining, yet the atrium is still bright. I am not smelling the coffee, but my table is still pleasant and my drink smooth. My family is at home, waiting for me, but I am not in a hurry."
Instead of our characters always describing what is there, how can we use what's missing, what's different, to help describe a scene or a feeling? Kinda interesting!
Sarah,
Nice little snippet. Did writing in the bathroom change the way it felt to write? Did that feeling of being in a smaller, more enclosed space help give your POV character and more threatened feeling? Did your character feel the sense of quiet - as if they weren't being overheard and could fight and yell without being interrupted?
I liked this line:
>> I made a gesture and went on saying that he’d be then a thief; not trust-worthy anymore.. And what did he? He shrugged grinning, gave me a kiss and went on. <<
It really gave me a good glimpse into your thief. He's (or she) does hear what your POV character is saying. It's not that he's not listening. It's just that he discounts the POV character's worries. And is perhaps a little mischievious in general.
Nice job. You really managed to bring a lot of the descriptions from your observations into your scene. Here's the line I liked best:
>>The wood planks of the floor had been handsome, but were old. And moisture and age had begun to make them gap and spread. <<
The second part of the description - "begun to make them gap and spread," was one detail that really brought the wood floors to life for me. It made those wood floors different from any other wood floors I've seen. It made them a specific wood floor.
Did you find it different to write in a different room, and to take those minutes to really study what was around you?
Kathleen,
>>What I learned was that the library is an extraordinarily noisy place.<<
It sounds like you had a similar experience to mine. If you'd written about the library from memory, what you "observed" from memory wouldn't have been anything like the reality. Kinda interesting huh?
>>One hand is whole, with squarish nails that he keeps meticulously clean with his jackknife. The other hand, the right hand, is missing the tips of four fingers. <<
I love descriptions in contrasts or comparisons.
>>of reaching too far into the gaping maw of technology<<
And I loved this description too.
Oh yes! It's not that I can't write with noise around me--I can and I have no problem with doing that, but when it's totally quiet I can hear my characters louder and only concentrate on what they're saying--or fighting about. <g> The thief is called Jack and Scarlett is the first-person from which point of view everything is told.
Dear Jenny: I usually write at the computer. That started when I went to college to earn my undergraduate degree and continued through law school. I sill favor writing at the computer with my baby on my hip; I write this way frequently, believe it or not <G>! But from sixth grade through high school, I wrote on stationary from my dad's place of business. During that period, I remember that I thought I could never write any other way - that is, any way other than by hand. Dreams and thoughts come and go so fast, you know, that I often believe that a computer is the only way to write - if you have been trained to type. I have been trained, so....
I worry about capturing thoughts as they come. But sometimes they marinate. Then, writing by hand offers something special.
I chose to do this exercise by hand and wrote, not at my desk before the dining room window, but before thd bay window in the living room. The living room is the place where I primarily play with my baby girl during the day. I sat on the floor, on her play mat, when I usually sit up higher. The informal position, having my baby playing beside (and on) me, changed a lot. I slowed down and absorbed - something I find it hard to do these days <g>.
The exercise was a good one, because it reminded me of the detail required to bring a reader along with me. The level of detail I noted during the exercise is the kind that I have to bring to my writing.
Hope this answers your question <g>....
Dear Beth: LOVED the observation of the airport. My favorite snippet is the following:
<Runways is probably not the right description. The runways are off in the distance aways, at the end of the “T” shaped terminal. I sit at the base of the “T”, where planes dock (or do they park?), service vehicles crisscross, and buses move passengers between terminals. There are few few people to be seen through the window, but the people are implied in the movement of vehicles and the arrival and departure of the planes.>
You could have been describing the culture of animals in a jungle or forests here. I just imagined being above - perhaps looking down from a plane, even - and seeing these goings-on like busy ants spilling out of mounds of earth built by those very ants.
Maybe this observation will make me seem an oddball, but words trigger very visceral visualizations for me. I am probably better at drawing a thing than describing it with words.
Anyhoo.... <g>
