For this exercise, I’m taking an old poem (which I don’t much like) and turning it into a piece of flash fiction (which I like only slightly better). After that: why I did it. A Long Distant Line I am reminded of my dad’s woolen Boy Scout blanket, fuzz balling across it like mold, layingContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Poetry-to-prose revision”
Tag Archives: writing exercises
A Writer’s Notebook: Spoken word video
A video is a strange thing to include in a Writer’s Notebook, at least in the sense that I couldn’t have written this in my little brown notebook with the unlined paper. But the purpose of the online Notebook is simply to create, and I’ll use whatever medium works. So bear with me, and I’llContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Spoken word video”
A Writer’s Notebook: “Underground history”
Gah! I didn’t write a Writer’s Notebook entry last week! Actually, I realized this last Saturday, and I probably could have knocked out a quick exercise and backdated it and just hoped no one noticed that I’d skipped a week. But I gave myself a pass for three reasons: 1) the Writer’s Notebook entry fromContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: “Underground history””
A Writer’s Notebook: writers talk writing
Today I’m offering three conversations about writing I’ve had with three different writer friends. The exchanges are a bit long, so I’ve divided this post into pages to help organize things. Check out the “table of contents” to skip to the section you’re interested in (but really, you want to read the whole thing). WhyContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: writers talk writing”
A Writer’s Notebook: a reading meme
Okay, this is perhaps cheating slightly, because a meme is hardly a writing exercise, right? Except that it is. I’ll explain more below, but for now, let’s call this a review of my influences. I should also preëmptively explain that this meme is made rather tricky because I have to qualify my answers: When itContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: a reading meme”
A Writer’s Notebook: a blank page
`Tis the season for lounging around in sweatpants and drinking cocoa, daydreaming about the looks on the faces of those we love when they open our gifts the next morning. Oh, and writing letters and e-mails to family and friends recapping the year, which is what I’ve been up to. Not exactly Writer’s Notebook materialContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: a blank page”
A Writer’s Notebook: a love story
The scenes below are from a story I’ve been working on for a long, long while. It’s on my computer in a folder labeled “TO FINISH THIS FALL.” Sadly, winter is just around the corner and the end of the year just a few weeks away, and I doubt I’ll find a satisfactory ending toContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: a love story”
A Writer’s Notebook: found message
No intro this week. Just the story, and then, below, the exercise. The first things he did when he got home from work was shuck his coat and pull a beer from the fridge. It was cold and wet outside, the rain thin but icy, the kind that freezes in your hair and stabs downContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: found message”
A Writer’s Notebook: HerInteractive story
So, as I wrote a while ago, HerInteractive is sponsoring a story contest, and I decided to play along. This isn’t a story I’d submit (for one thing, it isn’t finished; for another, I broke the rules), but here’s what I’ve done so far with the instructions for the contest. Isn’t it marvelous to beContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: HerInteractive story”
A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo update #4
So, as promised, I’ve been tinkering a bit with the book since I returned from vacation, even adding some new scenes, but I haven’t updated the word count because most of the new text is still in my voice recorder and most of the changes have been internal, meaning that part of the word countContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo update #4”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 