This is a true story. For now. The taxi driver’s name was Muhammad. He is from Pakistan. He has warm, kind eyes, something between hazel and blue in the dim passing light of the street lamps on the highway. A faint downturn at the outer edges, where his dark olive skin creases in fans fromContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: life study / character notes”
Tag Archives: writing exercises
A Writer’s Notebook: Mapping a story
This past Tuesday, I visited Zayed University to speak to an education class studying youth literature and preparing to write young adult stories of their own. (I’ll write a fuller post on this experience later this weekend.) We talked about books they were reading and how they might begin to write their own stories. TheContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Mapping a story”
A Writer’s Notebook: “Bridge the Gap”
I’ve done photo stories before (here, here, and here), but this one is a little different: this one involves two photos. I’ll explain more below, but just so you know up front why I’m using two pictures, the idea here is to get from the picture on the left to the picture on the rightContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: “Bridge the Gap””
A Writer’s Notebook: “mentor texts”
I think I might accidentally have started a new novel. It doesn’t look like much in this exercise, I admit, but believe me, it’s frighteningly large inside my brain. I don’t have time for this right now, frankly, and I’m going to have to put this on hold for a while (I might save itContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: “mentor texts””
A Writer’s Notebook: dream journal
I can’t explain why, but I woke up with this in my head: Like everyone else, the caricaturist had good days and bad days. On good days, the people would laugh and clap their hands, touch his shoulder, would point to their hairdos or their cocked grins and say, “Oh, that’s me exactly! That’s meContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: dream journal”
New publication(s)
Some publications news: I have two new stories in the March issue of Red Fez, “Still Alive” and “Dream with Enough Conviction.” You might recognize “Dream with Enough Conviction”: an earlier draft of it appeared here about ten months ago, as a Writer’s Notebook entry on music and fiction. And you might recognize Red Fez,Continue reading “New publication(s)”
A Writer’s Notebook: Description (from high school!)
This is a bit embarrassing, but what the hell — the essence of exercises is to attempt to write, and sometimes the results can be ugly. Besides, I have the defense that I wrote this almost twenty years ago, when I was just some high school kid who didn’t know anything about anything. I awokeContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Description (from high school!)”
A Writer’s Notebook: found objects
This week is a little random, but I’ll explain why below. When I lived in the States, I used to get a lot of junk mail. I got more junk than mail, actually, and I’m not including my bills in that. Brochures for apartments and trailer homes, ads for banks and groceries and shoe storesContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: found objects”
A Writer’s Notebook: First-line found story (revision)
This is a partial revision of the “found story” I began in last week’s notebook. And below that, I’ll write a bit about the revision process. No one was going to believe her, but the dog would not stop barking. That was how Margot put it, a metaphor she’d adopted like a slogan, the dogContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: First-line found story (revision)”
A Writer’s Notebook: First-line found story (rough draft)
This is going to be a two-part exercise: this week, I present a rough draft, and next week I will share a revision. This rough draft won’t make a lot of sense at first, but I’ll explain what’s going on below. No one was going to believe her, but the dog would not stop barking.Continue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: First-line found story (rough draft)”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 