Writing Workout: Awkward Stock Photos Challenge

                Thanks to the polar vortex, my school is going on a six day weekend. The downside is I was supposed to take my Statistics final six days ago. The upside is all this free time has enabled me to get some work done on my novel, work on finishing the Crash Course literature reading list, and come up with a new writing workout.

                The concept is ridiculously simple and also simply ridiculous. Pick a photo from Awkward Stock Photos and try to write an at least semi-logical short story about it. The point of this exercise is to learn to write yourself out of seemingly impossible situations, for when you have writer's block or need to up your word count on Nanowrimo. If you can't think of anything good, write all the possible ways the story could go. Then choose the best one and go with it.

Here are some pictures to choose from, or pick one from the Awkward Stock Photos blog:

                             Uptight boss who keeps the meeting going even after a gas leak?

               New smartphone that punches user whenever he or she posts something stupid online?

                                                    I don't even know what to tell you.

Man, Does That Guy Have Issues: Writing Workout

                This exercise comes from a conversation I had with a friend in my creative writing club. She felt like her poetry lacked depth and meaning. I encouraged her to be vulnerable, pick something she felt strongly about. A teenage girl has got to have at least one insecurity, right?

But she was hesitant. She didn’t think she could share her writing if it was so personal. So I told her to write from the point of view of another person.

                So here’s the assignment: write from the point of view of a very sad or very angry person. It can be a historic figure, a character from a book, or someone you just made up. Write a poem, a monologue, or a short story.

                But the challenge is to avoid typical vulnerability clichés. Here are some words you are not allowed to use unless you want to sound like some middle-schooler writing angst-fueled poetry in the back of her math notebook (Seventh grade was a really rough time, you guys):

                Sad

                Broken

                Hurt

                Alone

                Vulnerable

Here’s a poem I wrote for a poetry slam a little while ago, from the point of view of a fifties housewife:

I remember the day you left

We stood on the train platform with all the other couples

I was wearing that dress of mine you liked

My promise to wait for you

And you leaned in and kissed me on the head

And told me you weren't going to change

And then you said goodbye

Three years later, I met you again on that platform

I was wearing the same dress

You smiled and said that your uniform was different but you weren't

But you wouldn't talk to me about the war

I asked you about Japan and you said

"Well, you've seen the posters."

Your hands shook in mine as we said I do

You got dressed in the dark so I couldn't see the scars

But everybody told me this was normal

Just get a little house out in the suburbs

Have a couple kids

He'll get a job in the city

You'll stay home and cook dinner

Don't talk about the war you could never understand

I knew I would never understand

So I told myself that it was fine

I pretended I didn't hear you calling at night

Searching for the brothers you'd lost

Men that I would never meet

I was able to ignore it till the time our little girl cried

And you said, "Shut her up, I can't listen to anymore children scream."

It wasn't my place

I didn't say

When I realized that in a world where content was sold in a sear's catalog

Next to joy and a new blender

It was still something we would never be

The other wives in neighborhood never talked about it

Their men had been through the same thing

Came home to the same strangers

Why did we never talk about it?

Did we think that if we turned the tv up enough

Flip the pages of Good Housekeeping loud enough

We could drown out the sound of bullets coming from our husbands' ears

The noise makes my head hurt

I can't think straight

No, I don't want anymore pills

I want you

Except I want the version that give dandelions

Picked on the side of the road

Because you just remembered that they were my favorite flower

The version before you got on that train

Before some general sat you down

Gave you the power of God

To destroy a thousand lives instantly

And two lives years later

Hello, Senator McCarthy

Yes I would like to report a traitor

That man sitting in my house is not my husband

He is not of this country

He is still in Japan

Still sitting in the pilots' seat

Finger on the trigger

Ready to drop

And we are Hiroshima lovers

Shadows blown up on the walls of a suburban home by a bomb that detonated 20 years ago

The shape of us standing on that train platform

I am wearing your favorite dress

And you lean in and kiss me goodbye

My Cat Died and I Wrote a Novel: Writing Workout

                This is a writing exercise I learned while at a Young Writer’s Workshop taught by Jane St. Anthony, author of The Summer Sherman Loved Me, back when I was in middle school. This exercise is for beginners but if your writing is lacking believable emotion, give it a try.

Step 1:

                Think of a childhood memory where one vivid emotion is present. It could be the Christmas you got an amazing bike and could never have imagined being happier. It could be the day your dog died and you experienced grief for the first time. Write down a literal description of the event, how it happened, how you felt, how you reacted.

Step 2:

                Pick one of these stock photos I included below (I apologize in advance for any corniness; I was trying to avoid copy infringement.) Write a story based on one of those photos featuring the emotion from your memory. Project your feelings onto a character in the story; make the emotion as close to your memory as possible.

Turtle on Busy Road, Halfway There: Writing Workout

         Sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, six word stories are always entertaining. But more than just being a quirky way to show off your literary talent, these stories teach an important lesson. Keep it brief. Cut away any redundancies to let the reader draw their own conclusions. Take for example the most famous six word story, supposedly written by Ernest Hemingway on a bet:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn

         Short, simple, and tragic. The narrator never tells us what happened, but we can read between the lines. Literal, detailed explanations are tedious. Create a few six word stories that tell a familiar tale in a brief, creative way. Feel free to post them bellow.

Here are a few of my favorites from http://www.sixwordstories.net:

Two wives, one funeral, no tears.

If you're rich, I am single.

Left handed woman seeks Mr. Right.