Category: Writing Exercise

Writing Exercise: The Clay of Deconstruction

Erin Penn

Photo by Courtney Cook on Unsplash

Sometimes deconstructing a concept by comparing it to something else can help a person grasp the structure of an idea better. For today’s writing exercise, we will be comparing the writing process to other arts.

Writing is frustrating. I always say get things down on paper or a computer screen. You can’t fix things that haven’t been written.

But then, you need to return to it again and again – filling in dialog and description during draft 2; adjusting timelines, locations, and characters for consistence in draft 3; then all the editing processes when other people start reviewing your work. It seems like nothing else could be this frustrating, returning again and again to the same project until done.

One and done. Everyone else seems to be able to do it that way. Why is writing this difficult?

And yet … and yet.

Nearly all art forms go through this rough draft through final form phase. Working in isolation keeps creatives from knowing this requirement is part of the artistic process – from architects to embroideries, from singers to chefs.

WRITING EXERCISE: Compare some aspect of writing to another art form. Share your efforts below directly or through a link back to your own website. Do you think it helps to know you are not alone? Did this exercise give you insight on how to approach a writing project?

My Attempt

The advice is “get it written, then get it right”.

Do not push hard to get everything done perfect the first time with writing. Think clay.

Getting the first pass on paper is like going down to the river, digging out the clay, bringing it back home, and dropping it on the wheel. You now have something to work with.

It is nowhere ready to be sold. It is a lump of clay.

You still need to shape it. Smooth it. Round and round the wheel spins.

Add description. Test the timelines. Are the characters consistent? How is the rise and fall of action?

Dry it.

Let the words sit for a time.

Fire it, harden it. Paint it. Fire it again.

Send it out to beta readers. Fix those issues. Send it to the editors and proofreaders at your publisher (or the ones you hire as a self-published).

Only after the work has been run through fire does the clay become pottery.

Only after the work has been run through fire does writing drafts become novels.

You may want to skip steps, but the pottery won’t hold water or will crumble if held wrong.

You may want to skip steps, but the novel will have plot holes. It won’t be the best it can be without the extra work.

Magical Words: Writing Rituals

Erin Penn

Photo by Valery Fedotov on Unsplash

Writing Rituals

Some people swear by performing a ritual before starting writing to get their mind separated from “everything that needs to be done while I at home” to “I’m working.” Separating Home-Work-Chores from Working-from-Home is necessary, as many people have found out over the last few pandemic years.

Rituals to compartmentalize the Home from the Work space in the head allows one to return from work to home. Otherwise, someone is either always at work (a horrible situation) or at home (with the related distractions and related stress). Writers have been facing this issue for years.

Some of my writing friends separate Work-and-Home physically instead of just mentally, by going to Starbucks or other location. Locally, a bar-coffee-shop welcomes writers during NaNoWritMo. Two mugs can get a long way into your word count.

Leaving my cozy cottage doesn’t work well for me. My brain considers that friend time or “other” work time. But having writing-work not being distinct from home makes me depressed over time. Fortunately about the time the depression has be crossing into unproductive, is about the time tax season kicks in.

I need to find a solution to separate the brain spaces better.

Finding the right ritual for me would help. 500 words per day worked for several months. Using a timer lasted about two alarms. Food hints – like a cup of herbal tea or just past lunch – those haven’t had any success for me. Smell is more related to a place separation for me; but incense in the house doesn’t work, as the scent the incense sticks around for days. Smell isn’t a good ritual divider for me, just a space identifier.

Coming back from other jobs and just sitting down and writing doesn’t give me the mind-set change I need to create. I need a break between the two efforts. But the break can’t take too long or be too distracting. For example, for many people, once the TV is on – it’s on for the night as one show passes into another and before you know it, you’ve binged for four hours. I can’t afford that if I want to produce saleable product.

I need an hour break after coming home. A mind-free time, then a ritual to get restarted.

Mindy Klasky gives a list of “Writing Rituals” which work for her in Magical Words 9/15/2011 posting. The comments include other writers goto choices:

Read it over for suggestions.

WRITING EXERCISE: Pick a ritual and try it for a week (or seven times, if you don’t write daily) to kick start your writing. Does it help get your head in the right space? Does it help you feel more relaxed and less stressed about your writing and the rest of your life?

I’m going to try and use the timer method again, but without the buzzer. I got a pretty hourglass which I will flip over. All I have to do is concentrate on writing while the sands are falling. Play a game of solitaire (and only one!) to turn off the mind from everything else in the house, open the door and curtains to let in even more light, and flip the hourglass. Wish me luck!

What ritual did you develop and how has it worked for you?

Writing Exercise: Tension Arrows

Erin Penn

Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash

After a read, I had the following feedback for an author:

Are you trying for thriller or horror vibe? I think the scare factor / tenseness needs to be ramped up a notch. This can be done by increasing the urgency (thriller leaning) or the uneasiness (horror). At the moment, the tenseness is steady throughout the book – might be helpful to work on building some up-and-down into the manuscript.

Tension needed to be ratcheted up within the story, but not all at once, and certainly not without some relief now and again. The roller-coaster ride needed to be put into play. In this particular case, a slow build was needed to start, but getting faster with time … taking a break now and again … then slam readers as they relax.

The tool I suggested to help visual this ride is place an arrow beside each build of tension, making sure to have at least one arrow per chapter. Adding more arrows as the manuscript progresses (3 or 4 per chapter by the end). Make a flat line or down arrow for each “break” from building tension.

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a tension-building scene. Add tension arrows once done.

My Attempt

The gun meant nothing. To him. To me. As it sat waiting between us.

Off to the side, the clock ticked, ticked, ticked. One of the old analog clocks of a bygone era, like the gun.

Peace. The world was at peace. Both of us could feel the calming emissions working their way through the layers of concrete between us and the city outside, but the scents blown up from the subway vents and billowing out of the skyscraper doorways had been replaced by mildew and dust in this time-forgotten subbasement.

We had left our cells at the entrance, before making our way down here. No tracking, no emissions.

Just us.

And a nothing gun.

He twitched. I moved faster.

The explosion pounded my chest, and I dropped the heavy metal object when the hot residual sprayed back.

(words 138, first published 11/22/2022)

Writing Exercise: Social Media as a Marketing Tool

Erin Penn

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

I don’t do marketing nearly enough, let alone leveraging the massive bounty social media provides the independent and traditional author. Sure I have a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ErinPennBooks), a website with an active blog (erinpenn.com), a goodreads account where I do regular book reviews complete with an author page (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4918831.Erin_Penn), a profile on bookbud where I post reviews (https://www.bookbub.com/profile/2409314692), an Amazon author page (https://www.amazon.com/stores/Erin-Penn/author/B00CLSPZ68), and a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@erinpenn7745), but I barely use them to market. (I also have a Pateron, but I took that down for now. It might return in the future.)

I sometimes remember to cross-post my blog post to my Facebook page, but that doesn’t sell books.

John Hartness – the pinnacle of “buy my shit” – recommends that once a week (varying the day), make a post (cross-post between twitter, Facebook, and your other social media channels) about your writing. Just four posts per month about you, anyone can do that, right? Another two or three posts about someone else’s work just to spread the love.

Week 1 (Wednesday) – Hey, got an audio book; Week 2 (Tuesday) – And a ebook; Week 3 ( Thursday) Also available in print; Week 4 – Ebook is cheap!

Alternate books if you got more than one out. Concentrate on one a month.

While Facebook keeps changing their algorithms, they really don’t like people selling without paying them, or directing people away from the FB app – so it usually is better to put the buy link into comments. If you got a YouTube video, see if you can load it someway to the FB app instead of sending people to YouTube.

Speaking of YouTube, if you have an audiobook out, Hartness recommends going to YT about once a month and see if people are uploading pirated versions on the YT. You paid well for that audiobook, don’t let pirates kill it.

So while I have a big social media footprint, I am not using it at all.

WRITING EXERCISE: Mention something you have written that is available for people to read on one of your social media account.

My Attempt: Does this count?

Geeking Science: Notifications & Interruptions

Erin Penn

Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

Every time a person switch tasks, energy is drawn from their cognitive processing. Humans are built to switch tasks every 20 minutes or so; varies from person-to-person and by age. Have a sit-till task, then a doing task. Learning, then resting. Sermons break up long periods of sitting with some song. Working in the field for a while, then a break to take care of the animal. If you are in a lecture, you might find your eyes and mind wandering at the twenty-to-thirty-minute mark.

Modern life overloads this switch task capability with notifications. Beep, beep, beep goes the phone. Co-workers popping in the office for a “quick question.” By the end of the day, the cognitive processor is done with adjusting tasks and decision making. Suddenly pizza or fried chicken looks like a good option on the way home instead of the healthy meal vaguely mapped out in the head from the last grocery trip. Never mind food going bad in the fridge, health issues with salt, and budgets being destroyed. You don’t have time or energy to make a decision.

You are not alone. Research has shown constant interruptions decrease the financial decision-making skills. By living from interruption to interruption, one only lives in the “now”. Long-term goals and critical thinking escape out the window when someone is always coming in through the door with the next new thing. This is a problem for day-to-day life.

And for your writing. If all your cognitive juices are used up before you even drive home, tapping them for creative energy to write at the end of the day becomes impossible.

I can’t write much during the tax season, especially when I’m assigned to a Walmart location. I need to answer the phones and answer all the “quick questions” of passerbys – while dealing with the client, keeping aware of the surroundings to protect their information, monitor emails for needed information, and manage the line. Oh, and the texts from my co-workers who have questions (as well as texts from friends and family about other things in the life, deciding on my food, and taking care of the social media related to my writing/editing occupations).

Ways to free up energy focus on reducing the decision-making and task-switching. If possible, group phone notifications to just three times per day at work. The 8 am coffee break and settle in to work; noon for lunch “conversation” for personal notifications or one for after-lunch getting back into the saddle, then four or four-thirty to close out the day. Five or five-thirty for the drive home for personal responses. People who trim the constant beep-beep-beep down to just three groups per day say they are more productive and less stressed. (Glick, 2022)

Other ways to reduce the cognitive load include making a list of the tasks you WANT to accomplish in the day. When one task is done, look at the list and move on. This way you don’t have to wrack you brain after each task for a new one. Create habits like at the end of the day, flip the hourglass for one group of writing (It’s still working for those following at home about my writing/editing life!). These habits reduce the switch-task costs. Figure out was to cut out distractions, the “just a moment” interruptions. Putting a sign on the door for the work-at-home saying “work hours are 8 to noon and one to five – Any interruptions mean I work over, which mean you do dishes.”

WRITING EXERCISE: Figure out one thing to reduce your cognitive load – either reduction of decision-making or switching tasks – and implement it. For example, setting up notifications to only ding three times a day or turning off the Facebook notifications altogether. Or create a habit, like laying out your clothes the night before so you don’t have to make choices before you have your coffee.

Good luck at limiting your interruptions and restoring your cognitive load to manageable levels.

Comment below what cognitive load burdens are heaviest for you, what you are working on for the Writing Exercise, and how it turned out this week. Follow up in a month or two about it’s impact on your time management and self-care.

Bibliography

Glick, Molly. “Phone Notifications are Messing with Your Brain.” Discovermagazine.com. 2022 April 29. – last viewed 5/5/2022