The Zingara Project

Category: Writing Exercises

  • Writing Exercise: Do it in Bed

    DSCN3581Numbered among authors known to enjoy writing in bed are Edith Wharton, Winston Churchill, Colette, and Mark Twain. Certainly there a others, well-known and novice alike, who also find the benefits of writing in bed worthwhile. And why not? Writing in bed, especially first thing in the morning (before fully rising to begin the day) is an excellent way to tap into the interstice state of mind that exists between dreaming and waking states. Writing while reclined, more than any other position, also reduces the effect of gravity, thus encouraging the mind to wander. Worried your muscle memory will put you to sleep the minute you hit the mattress? Try writing while reclined on the living room sofa or your favorite recliner. If you wind up dozing between lines, all the better. You may find your writing takes an unusual, even refreshing, turn.

    This week, try writing in a reclined position, at least once, and embrace the nonchalance this exercise will bring to your prose or poetry.

  • Writing Exercise: Map

    Draw a map of a familiar location that you either physically survey or remember vividly.  Bear in mind that in addition to highlighting relationships among concrete elements of space, your map can diagram emotional relationships and connections among remembered events and other themes. Mark the places where important events occurred or where interesting, memorable objects are located. Allow reverie and nostalgia to guide your train of thought.

    When finished making your map, reflect upon what it has been revealed to you and choose a moment, location or object to write about.  Use the resulting image as the basis for a story, poem or essay. Feel free to share it in the comments section below.

    And most of all, have fun.

  • Poking Your Psyche with a Stick: Fun with Writing Exercises!

    Today’s guest blog is written by good friend and amazing poet who goes by the moniker “Oh Hells Nah.” We I met in Albuquerque sometime between 2007 and 2009  through a network of mutual friends (a.k.a – our boyfriends).

    I love this writer’s wry sense of humor and honest appraisal of the writer’s life – she likes to keep it “real.”  She offers a frank discussion of the writing process as well as several great writing exercises, including some of the dadaist absurd variety (and my personal favorite).

    At this very moment I am spraining my arm from patting myself on the back for being smart enough to ask Oh Hells Nah to write something for ZingaraPoet. Watch for future writings from this featured writer and be sure to visit her blog at ohhellsnah.com. In the meantime, enjoy!

    ——

    My writing process is messy and somewhat nonsensical. I believe ideas grow in my subconscious like moss (or a fungus, depending on what), and that I must excavate them with a metaphorical scoop. Sometimes I see an image and then feel it nestle in the folds of my memory. They hatch eggs in my brain! I know that I may not know how to respond to it at that moment, but eventually, perhaps many years later, it will manifest itself in a poem. I’ll be peeing or washing my hands or something equally mundane and then suddenly remember. I will run to my journal before it disappears, hopefully without my pants around my ankles.

    I’ve felt this way since I was a little girl. There were times the sight of something like a green sunset or a glittering puddle would leave me speechless. I think I always had a keen eye for beauty in surprising places and forms. That ineffable feeling is what made me want to write—the determination to make it effable. Needless to say, I didn’t have many friends, so time to write was plentiful. (Also plentiful were bad haircuts and ill-fitting clothes.)

    I wish I still had that kind of time. It’s hard to make myself write after I get home from work exhausted and disgruntled. Sometimes I’m convinced that a lobotomy was performed on me at work when I wasn’t looking. Maybe some sort of corporate gnome stealthily climbed in through my nose and then hacked away at my brain. However, I believe that a major part of being a writer is writing even when you’d rather slow dance with a possum, when you think you have nothing at all to say, when all you wanna do is watch a that nasty show about Brett Michaels.

    I admit I have a chip on my shoulder when people I meet tell me they are writers. Many of them say that they write  sometimes when they’re sad or angry or some shit. There is so much I want to say at these moments, i.e. I bet your poems are full of adverbs and crying fairies, but instead, I just keep my mouth shut and smile politely. I suspect this makes me an asshole.

    I don’t have a specific writing schedule, but I write, in some form or other, nearly every day. I’ve been writing a lot of prose lately. It’s enjoyable, and in some ways, so much easier for me than poetry. When writing nonfiction, my goal is always to address some sort of timely issue and find a way to make it funny. Poetry, however, requires a different sort of concentration. And poetry is what truly makes my heart flutter.

    A major component in writing poetry for me is exploring my subconsciousness and challenging myself to use language unlike my own. I’ve compiled a list of writing exercises that help me exhume the mess in my brain or force me to use words that I rarely use.

    Dada

    I have taught this one numerous times. It learned it from my zany poetry professor in Madrid. It’s weird, but I promise it works. (If it doesn’t, you can find me and give me a severe noogie.) I have adapted it slightly.

    1. Before you go to bed, write the word “fish” on a sheet of paper and leave it nearby.

    2. Upon waking, write down whatever comes to mind on that sheet.

    3. Later in the day, close your eyes and count to 30. When you open your eyes think of the word “needle.”

    4. Write down whatever this word evokes. Do not let reason or rationality limit you. Be as absurd as your subconscious allows.

    5. Immediately after, write three lines in iambic pentameter.

    6. Then write: “This poem is about” then the first 7 words that come you.

    7. Write a word that that references the first word, “needle” then take a word from #4.

    8. Join these two words in a long line. The reference to “needle” should be the first word and the word from #4 should be the last.

    9. Immediately write 6 lines. Lines 1,3,5 should start with the same word. Lines 2,4,6 should end with the same word.

    10. Try to use all this hooha in a poem in some form or other.

    100 Things Worth Living For

    I got this one from an undergrad professor whose guts I ended up hating. I don’t want to name names, but his very famous book has a bird in the title. Man, he was douche… But  anyway, this exercise worked very well. I came up with all sorts of precise images. You will get very specific and surprise yourself, trust me. All you do is write a list of 100 things worth living for. It may seem easy, but it gets difficult after a while. One of my last ones was Pup-Peroni and I don’t even own a dog.

    The Ole Translation Exercise

    I’m sure most of you know this one. All you do is take a poem in a different language and translate it to English based only on the way the words look and sound. Don’t try to make sense. Your brain will come up with something strange and compelling. I, for example, came up with “octopus carrot orgy ” in one of them. Jealous? I recommend that you use a language that is really unfamiliar to you. I am fluent in both English and Spanish so I find many of the romance languages too familiar. I often use Gaelic, Welsh, or Irish poem. Those languages look funky!

    Language Stealing

    I know this is wrong, but I call this one poem raping. (Please don’t send me angry emails.) The point of this one is to force you to use another’s language when your diction becomes predictable. I got this one from Kim Addonizio’s The Poet\’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. From what I remember, you take a poem you admire and then make three lists—adjectives, nouns, and verbs. In each list, circle five words that stand out. Try to use these words in a poem.

    Speech Acts

    This one I got from my former professor Dana Levin who I believe got it from Helen Vendler. I wrote a lyric poem that I was quite pleased with (and was later published) as a result of this exercise. The point of this exercise is to try to use several speech acts that you don’t typically use.

    Here is a short list of speech acts. For some examples, click here.

    apology

    complaint

    compliment

    response

    refusal

    boast

    request

    lament

    Those are just a few exercises that help me get some creative juices flowing. I hope your writing is fruitful and unsettling. I hope you unearth some nuggets of weirdness.

    Love and Squalor,

    Oh Hells Nah

    —-

    www.ohhellsnah.com is like hot dogs for your brain! I am a small Mexican American woman who likes to bitch, eat good food, and write poems. I cover some of the following topics: writing, hot dogs, feminism, weird fashion, Buddhism, misanthropy, humanism, culture, Chicago, Muppets, race, travel, time travel, manners, and gnomes.

  • Writing Exercise: Memorize

    Poetry is meant to be spoken, and it is meant heard. So this week, memorize a favorite poem – preferably one of your own. Make memorizing fun by trying any of the following approaches:

    • Sing your poem out loud in the shower.
    • Write it a hundred times in a notebook.
    • Post copies of it on the refrigerator, on the bathroom mirror, or on your car’s dashboard.
    • Perform it in front of a mirror or in front your stuffed animals or portraits of your family and friends.
    • Record yourself reciting the poem and listen (or watch) your performance – repeatedly.
    • Prepare as if you were going to perform in front of a live audience of hundreds. Someday, you might.

    Feel free to share the poem you choose to memorize in the comments section below.

  • Writing Exercise: Reminisce by Proxy

    Photo Courtesy Moriah Beagel

    Look through someone else’s old photo albums for photos of people and places you know little to nothing about. Old black-and-white-turned-sepia photos work well for this exercise. The less information you have about the context and the people in the photos, the less likely you are to just retell the “true” story leading up to the moment the photo was taken; the less information you have, the more your imagination can fill in.

    Not sure where to find old photographs? Consider asking your grandmother, or your aunt, or even your friend’s brother’s mother-in-law for a gander at their old albums. They will likely be thrilled that you are interested in looking at something that is personally important to them, and in fact took pains to preserve over the years. If this is not an option for you, consider cruising antique shops in your area for boxes of old photographs. In many ways, these are the best. You can develop full characters and entire histories for the individuals whose likenesses appear on these little squares of photo-finished paper.

    Post your resulting character sketch, narrative, poem or paragraph in the comments section below.

  • Line a Day Writing Exercise

    Write one line of poetry, inspired by any images you encounter, for each day of the week. Pay special attention to those images that engage your sense of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. Favor tactile images over cognitive ones.

    If you like the seven lines you created at the end of the week, write another seven over the course of the following week and combine them to fashion a kind of sonnet.

  • Writing Exercise: Dream

    For this week’s writing exercise, keep a pad of paper and a pen or pencil next to your bed and use them to capture the vestiges of your most recent dream upon waking. If you find the act of writing in the mornings a difficult task (or your eyes simply don’t focus that quickly in the morning) you can dictate your dreams  into a tape or digital recorder and transcribe them later. After a few nights of recording the images, themes and emotional texture of your dreams, try synthesizing them into a poem. Don’t worry about remembering every detail correctly. Instead, just make up the parts that are “missing.” No one will accuse you of getting the facts wrong.

    Feel free to post your poem in the comments section below.

  • Listening Writing Exercise

    This week’s exercise requires the writer venture away from home and the writing desk to find an interesting public venue in which to work.

    Find a comfortable spot in a busy location where you can to sit and listen to conversations of others around you. Naturally, restaurants and coffee shops can provide such a setting, but try to broaden your search to less obvious locals. For example, a classroom fits the bill well, especially if you happen to be student or a teacher. So does a work environment, the park, a long line or the waiting room at the tax preparer ‘s office. Be sure to bring your notebook with you.

    As snippets of conversation float your way, take selective dictation in long-hand in your notebook. While there is no rule against using a lap-top computer for this exercise, the key here is to be selective in your dictation and try not to write down every detail – long-hand will lessen that temptation.

    Alternately, and particularly if you are a techy, you could use a voice recorder of some sort, transcribing selectively when you later listen. This approach allows you to listen closely in the moment and focus on the texture of the conversation rather than the details of the words. Your note-taking can focus on intonation and other non-linguistic details that might help animate your later (selective) transcription.

    Instead of returning to your transcribed notes right away, let time lapse and events intervene with your memory. When finally you return to your notes, it will be with fresh eyes (and ears). Hopefully you will have forgotten some of what you heard and your subconscious will have already begun to make up alternate explanations for the notes you have taken. Let your imagination fill in the parts you don’t remember accurately, or, better yet, let your imagination rearrange everything contained in your notes.

    Create a poem from this experience and share it in the comments area below.

  • Writing Exercise: Walkabout

    There aren’t many people who would argue that walking isn’t good for you, and that certainly holds true for the poet. What better way to clear the cobwebs from the mind and lubricate joints that are aching from too long sitting at the writing desk than to take a stroll around the block or through the park. Make a conscious effort this week  to take a walk, paying close attention to the world around you when you do. Leave pen and paper behind and really, truly use your five senses to take in the environment you encounter. Trust your senses to store your experience to write about when you return home, for nothing triggers memories better than strong sensory associations. No need to limit yourself to walking in your neighborhood, though that can be an adventure if done with an attitude of a foreigner. Consider taking a slightly bigger adventure and try walking a trail in the woods you’ve been thinking about since Autumn and didn’t get around to exploring before winter set in. If you are a fair weather walker, then check the forecast and make a concrete plan to engage with the outdoors on the nicest day this week. Better yet, use April showers as an excuse to don raincoat and goulashes for a child-like stomp in the rain to get in touch with your inner youngster (just let your inner parent keep the inner child from catching cold in the process.) Or perhaps the best way to approach this week’s writing “exercise” is to simply drop what your doing and take that walk right now!

  • Writing a Poem a Day

    Every April I celebrate National Poetry Month by reading lots of poetry, convincing other people to read lots of poetry and trying to get everyone to write a little poetry. I also follow the “Poem a Day” challenge, and this year, for the first time,  completed the challenge by writing thirty-five poems in thirty days.

    One trick to writing a poem a day, or writing anything on a daily basis for that matter, is to allow yourself to do it poorly. Because, integral to the creative process is failure and foolishness, hopefully of the playful kinds, and just generally coming to terms with the awkwardness of making something from nothing. It’s all “elbows and knees,” or in the case of writing, passive voice and too many adjectives. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, I also say, otherwise, expectations of perfection will interfere with the act of creation, a process that in and of itself is already perfect.

    With that said, let me admit that the poems I’ve drafted this month are all pretty crappy. They are unfinished, awkward, contain trite beginnings and contrived endings, tired images and many clichés.  But maybe, just maybe, there is a line or a poem’s worth of lines that will evolve into something publishable.

    For me, generating poetry to use for raw material is all about the “quantity = quality” equation, one that is still sneered at by many. Maybe for writers like Tolstoy, writing the perfect sentence or paragraph before moving on to the next is the best process, but I for one need the actual act of writing to get where I am writing too, and there is a lot of support for this belief. “Writing begets writing” my Graduate Fiction Writing instructor, Susan Rodgers, used to say. It takes a million words before you can publish, or earn, your fist novel, according to Randy Ingermanson. Obviously, for Chris Baty of the NaNoWriMo phenom, it’s about writing 50,000 words in thirty days for one month out of the year. Finally, according to a wiser author than I (whose name escapes me at the moment), you have to write through a lot of crap to get to the good stuff.

    But letting yourself write poorly is also about facing the blank page every day and consistently conquering it, “consistently” being the operative word there. That is, writing needs the same consideration as such daily self-care pursuits as eating, showering, and exercising (or meditating). In my life, writing must receive the same priority as a second job, especially necessary though doubly difficult since I am already employed full-time. As a second job, writing is difficult because its rewards are often delayed and are rarely monetary, its process often tedious, and its available time often gobbled up by greedy employers, needy people or insistent errands. But still I write, and still I fail to write, and still I fail when I write.  But the bottom line is, I write.

    But let me return to the topic of writing a poem a day in April and say that the best part of this year’s challenge is that after essentially forcing myself to write a poem every day is that it became easier to start. Similar to keeping a well primed, everything I saw or experienced had potential for a poem. And best of all was experiencing something akin to a runner’s high; moment when I felt like I could go on writing forever.