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Dave Clapper
Seattle Literary Examiner
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Writing Exercise
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Dave Clapper - Seattle Literary Examiner
For the last several years, while focusing my lit energy on editing SmokeLong Quarterly, my pen seemed to dry up. Recently, I've been making more of an effort to write something every weeknight (on weekends, I have my kids, so I take those days off). Often, when I sit down at the keyboard, I have no idea what I'm going to write. Writing exercises, on those nights, prove invaluable. One night, for example, a high school student in the Chicago area saw on my Facebook profile that I needed to write, but had nothing in mind. He suggested, and I quote, "Write a story about the fact that the first cougar seen in Illinois for the past 100 years was shot for doing nothing. Damn hicks." What resulted was a quirky piece about some Chicago barflies hearing the gunshots and lamenting the Cubs' chances.Tonight is another night that I don't have any particular story in mind. Because this is my first day with Examiner, I've decided that this will be my exercise for the evening: peruse the stories posted here on Examiner until something grabs me in the same way the cougar-shooting story did. Then sit down and write for an hour. And that's my challenge to you as well, as I assume many people checking up on literary news are writers themselves. Some time in the next 24 hours, surf around Examiner and read until a particular story catches your eye. Then sit down and write for an hour. Your writing doesn't have to be about the article you read—it needs only to have been triggered somehow by it. Post what you've written, along with a link to the article you read that set the neurons firing, in the comments here. I don't imagine we'll have a lot of takers for this right off the bat. But I'll continue to post exercises from time to time (regularly, if demand warrants it). And if there's enough of a response to it, perhaps I'll start offering prizes, such as books I've finished reading that I think deserve more readers. So, have at it. Surf, read, write, post! |
