New posting at Hit and Run Magazine
Check it out!
New posting at Hit and Run Magazine
Check it out!
Ok, here are your 8 nouns to use in a poem or story of no more than 80 words. As usual, you may use the words in any declension to help yourself along. So yes, you can change the noun “fire” to use as a verb, or an adjective.
Post your drafts to the CWC FB page or to the CWC Google+ page if you like when you’re done.
fire, job, trickster, stole, palate, tree branch, journeyman, meditation
Enjoy!
© CWC 2013
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Style note. Watch out for dangling modifiers. They are easy to lose track of during the first draft. When you go back through your piece, comb through to make sure there aren’t of these entertaining, but problematic phrases.
Examples: 1) Sidetracked by the phone call, the stew boiled over and Ella blamed her chatty mother. 2) While drinking and laughing on the patio, the firecrackers delighted the happy revelers. 2) I watched my uncle Burt kill a two foot long snake as a little girl.
Fix these then make of some of your own and fix them. Don’t forget to go back through your writing to see if you have any dangling there.
© CWC 2013
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Remember the first book that ever thrilled you? How it smelled, what it weighed in your hand, how you felt as you opened the cover? Recall that exquisite feeling — part fulfillment, part desire — and write about it.
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Write about a situation in which some piece of a project that gets completed in the story or poem must be done at least twice. For example, a character is helping his child to build a model airplane and has forgotten an essential piece of the plane and must retrace his steps and insert the missing piece. Or, someone is paying bills and has sealed up the envelopes and notices she forgot to include the checks.
© CWC 2013
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Jobs can give the perception of inside knowledge in a character. A dog groomer may see dogs as furry people. A mechanic may see the world as a series of cogs that fit together in a precise manner or as a structure that may require constant tinkering. Someone who works with money may constantly be thinking in terms of things and people and their value.
How can a job and its inside knowledge enrich your character?
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Write about the first guy in line.
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What are 5 things for which you are truly grateful? These things do not have to be extremely profound, but of course should be important to you. After you have reflected on your list, pick one or two and write a poem or story from the point of view of someone else to whom these things are very important but has a different story about why.
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Use all of the following 8 words in any declension in a poem or story of no more than 80 words.
scarf, pen, coffee, surgery, marketplace, tabloid, coaster, pillow.
Post to the CWC FB site if you are so inspired. We’d love to see what you wrote.
Good luck!
© CWC 2013
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Keep track of your dreams this week and everything down what you remember. Accuracy of detail is more important than accuracy of sequence. If you don’t dream or remember your dreams every night, then stretch your recordings over a longer period of time. The thing to do after recording several dreams is to take those images, as weird or mundane as they may be, and separating them from the act of dreaming itself, use them in a poem or short story of any length.
© CWC 2013
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