The second stage is to type up the three 100 word pieces (preserving the originals) and cut them up into very short phrases and single words, then lay out all the words so that they can be scanned easily. Next assemble the short sequences, intuitively, without worrying about commonsensical things like meaning or narrative.
The first night in London was very difficult for me, then on my way home while I’m jammed in the hot sweaty train all I can think of was my fantasy bed that is not like the traditional water bed. It is made of water that I can actually float and sleep on.
The one thing I was impatiently waiting for all day is when I rest my body on the comfortable mattress of my childhood bed.
The new city welcomed me with cold weather and pouring rain. I even put it among the list of things that I would ask God to grant me when I go to paradise.
Though I don’t know what happened to the remnants of the bed, I still wish I can sleep even for just an hour on my comfortable childhood bed.
Write a final 100 words on a fantasy bed, a bed where money is no object, a bed that can be made of anything you like.
I saw a program when I was a child where there was a water bed and since that day I keep on dreaming of sleeping on this water bed.
I even put it among the list of things that I would ask God to grant me when I go to paradise.
But I don’t want my fantasy bed to be like the traditional water bed. I want it to be made of water that I can actually float and sleep on. Though it would be a bed that doesn’t make you drown...you can sleep on it but the water doesn’t touch your ears, mouth or nose while you’re floating.
I also want it to have relaxing sounds like waterfalls, boat in a river, sounds of birds singing or even drops of rain depends on my mood. I want on top of this bed an open ceiling so you can see the sky with the beautiful stars that shin and dim
This would be my place of relaxation and my sanctuary.
Write another 100 words on the bed you currently occupy, what’s in it, what surrounds it, what you do in it, etc. we spend one third of our lives in bed but no one seems to write about it!
On my first day in London, after I got off the plane, the taste of Cairo was still in my lips. The new city welcomed me with cold weather and pouring rain. I entered my bedroom and all I could think of was how what might people call big you consider it small and the other way around.
When I saw my bed that was bought by my in laws, I just didn’t feel right, I thought to my self ‘if this is where my husband sleeps then where would I sleep?’ my bed in Egypt was double this size and I used to sleep on it on my own.
The first night in London was very difficult for me to sleep because I was worried I might fall from the bed.
Few months later I started to use few techniques to overcome the problem of the bed size, I pushed the bed beside the wall so I would not fall and also I would put a blanket under the bed cover to make the size of the mattress from both sides a bet bigger.
Sometimes I wish I can just sleep on the floor and not be on this uncomfortable bed which freezes in winter and makes you sweaty and itchy in the hot weather.
We had a new sofa bed after that and since then I use every opportunity I can to sleep on it and I keep on promising my self every month that we’ll get a new bed and I wouldn’t have to suffer with this uncomfortable bed any more.
Allison Fell presented a very intresting exercise that she said it opens the writers’ eyes, hearts, and minds to some of the essentials of writing. Also, it encourages students to relax their control of language in order to allow a lighter and fuller control to emerge.
1. Write 100 words prose description of a bed you slept in as a child. Write in sentences rather than in a note form, as the verbs will be important later.
2. When you’ve done that, writer another 100 words on the bed you currently occupy, what’s in it, what surrounds it, what you do in it, etc. we spend one third of our lives in bed but no one seems to write about it!
3. Write a final 100 words on a fantasy bed, a bed where money is no object, a bed that can be made of anything you like.
4. The second stage is to type up the three 100 word pieces (preserving the originals) and cut them up into very short phrases and single words, then lay out all the words so that they can be scanned easily. Next assemble the short sequences, intuitively, without worrying about commonsensical things like meaning or narrative.
My Childhood Bed
Everyday at university running from one building to another under the hot boiling sun of Hilwan University, then on my way home while I’m jammed in the hot sweaty train all I can think of is the moment I turn my key in the door and get inside my flat.
The one thing I would be impatiently waiting for all day, is when I rest my body on the comfortable mattress of my childhood bed.
This bed was so amazing that in the hot unbearable weather outside I come home and I just rest on it and it would feel so cool and nice and when its cold outside it welcomes me with its warmth and comfort.
Since I was young this bed was a big part of my life, I used to sleep on it, put all my books on it and do my homework on it, read write and watch T.V, listen to the Radio and cry myself to sleep on it.
Until this moment I wake up sometimes and I feel I’m still there in my old flat and I’m sleeping on it… I even dream that I will go home one day and be able to sleep again on it. Although I know that this is impossible because I witnessed the day it broke when I had a gathering with some of my friends and it just fell to the ground, I know it was very old but it was very dear to me, it was part of me, maybe that’s why I kept the mattress on its own, it provided me a lot of relief from my back pains and it was a place of comfort till the day I had to leave my home. Though I don’t know what happened to the remnants of the bed I still wish I can sleep even for just an hour on my comfortable childhood bed.
Sara Maitland in this chapter speaks about the importance of research for a writer, learning new things, exploring new material, finding out is key to creative writers, for curiosity, wanting to learn, moving into new territory, aligns the writer with the reader.
Finding out exercise
Here is a list of eight somewhat obscure words, each with three meanings- one of these is the real meaning as defined by the dictionary, the other two are tiny works of fiction:
Knurl
1. An ancient Celtic game, still played in some Scottish islands, not dissimilar from hockey.
2. A short, stumpy person; a dwarf.
3. To hit someone from behind; to attack from the rear.
Oeps
1. Some benefit or profit earned by hard work.
2. A Victorian word for an eccentric or nutter – from the initials of the Orgnization for External and Psychic Studies.
3. Boys in the junior houses of Eton, called fags in other public schools (no pun intended).
Jobbernowl
1. A clerk or other lowly worker in the Stock Exchange.
2. To cheat or lie your way into a job; to fake your references.
3. An idiot; a thick stupid person.
Deipnosophist
1. A person who enjoys talking at meal times.
2. A person who believes that the gods are not interested in human beings.
3. A person who studies diseases of the mouth – gums, teeth, etc.
Haysel
1. A native officer in the Indian regiments during the Raj.
2. An East Anglian word for the hay-making season, late May and June.
3. A type of helmet, with a low visor, worn by medieval knights.
Collybist
1. Originally a money lender or banker, now any miser, skinflint or excessively ungenerous person.
2. A species of sea snail, a bit like a cockle but with a whiter shell.
3. A small explosion deliberately set off for scientific experiment.
Myrmidon
1. A wicked and seductive young mermaid, with a particularly sweet singing voice, who lures sailors to their deaths.
2. An ingredient used in expensive perfumes, extracted from the musk glands of minks.
3. A fierce warrior from a tribe in ancient northern Greece, celebrated by Homer.
Ozena
1. An unmarried woman, often a belly dancer, living in a Turkish harem and having many of the privileges of a wife, but whose children do not inherit their father’s rank.
2. Putrid snot brought on by ulcerous diseases of the nasal mucous membrane.
3. A mythical beast, somewhat like a gazelle but with the legs of a bird, which the Spanish conquistadors believed to live in what are now the Peruvian and Chilean mountains.
Now you have to guess which is the true meaning. It will be mainly guesswork actually, after you check your answers then you have to write a short narrative using all seven words.
Key to answers:
Knurl = 2; Oeps = 1; Jobbernowl = 3; Deipnosophist = 1; Haysel = 3; Collybist = 1; Myrmidon = 3; Ozena =2.
I got only 2 correct but take a look at the weird narrative that came out of these words.
The jobbernowl knurl said while he was holding a grape in his hand, ‘ what brought here?’
‘I lost all my oeps because of your actions’ said the myrmidon.
The knurl slammed on the table and said, ‘shut up, I want to hear no more. Can’t you see I’m eating my dinner?’
‘I thought you are a deipnosophist?’ said the myrmidon sarcastically. ‘I’ll keep on talking till I take my money back you little collybist’. He added.
‘alright, then give me your helmet.’ Said the knurl with a smile on his face then the myrmidon obediently gave him the helmet.
The knurl blew his nose in the helmet and said, ‘this is all you can get from me, my Ozena in your haysel, now get out off my face’
The myrmidon unsheathed his sword and cut the knurl’s nose and ran away followed by the guards who started to chase him after they heard their master, the knurl screaming.
Another trial for the previouse exercise....
Gazing at this bottle of water, I can see everything clearly through it, it is strange that the water doesn’t have a colour….actually it makes perfect sense, water is the life fluid, you can live, as scientists say with out food for over 15 days but you can’t live without water for more than 5 days.
It is amazing that this life-giving liquid is colourless, is it because when you see through it you see what’s inside and also what’s behind the glass you are holding?
It gives you a sense of honesty and transparency as if you are part of the game and nothing is hidden away from you.
When I try to describe the smell and the taste of the water, its smell and taste is so unique and nothing ever tastes or smells like it and yet there is no word or adjective that describes it.
What does the water smells like? Hmmmm water, what does the water smells like? Hmmm water the answer would be of course because this heavenly sent liquid is indescribable.
The effect of the water sound on me is strange as well, few months ago I had a horrible feeling of anger and rage, I was so upset at nothing and everything at the same time. I felt that I couldn’t breath, I felt that I’m having panic attack.
I ran and kept running until I reached a cold old bench right beside the river, as I moved closer to the river bank, the soothing sound of the water calmed me down, I cried, I spoke to the river and he spoke to me. I heard the waves promising me that they will scare away all my sadness and the water told me that it will wash away my fears.
Try the following exercise, which will mimic the process pf note-making and the establishing of connections.
First choose an object of some kind and place it in front of you. It can be the blue vase you bought in Greece, full of Greek sea and sky or something as simple as an item of clothing.
Once you have the object, describe it in as close detail as possible, including the five senses without forcing it.
The Mat
It sets there all the time, doesn’t have a choice where to be or where to go. It has to be there for a reason, a reason it has not chosen.
What can it do? It’s just wants to run away from all the hundred feet that step on her, its just a door mat and that’s the way it is. The smell of different shoes and different feet, the agony of people leaving and not coming back to her warmth again leaves it torn inside.
The taste of humiliation when it is handled as if it is nothing, as if it is just a piece to complete the furniture and make the house looks neat and tidy makes it want to shrink and not provide the people with its services, but it feels all worth it when the mat feels an appreciating wet shoes running from the rain outside and a cold freezing foot resting on the softness of the its surface.
Workshop exercise in Haiku
Write a short story. Very short. One hundred words. You have ten minutes.
I was in the DLR coming from work and as I started writing then a drunk started speaking loud about how barbaric we, Muslims, are. It’s just so hilarious because every Sunday after I finish my work in Taiybun, I had to see one of those losers, who drink their heads off in the morning and by 16:00 pm they are just so drunk and they try to scare the first victim they see who happened to be a Hijabi girl wearing glasses and burying her head in her book. Shows how brave they are for choosing me for their Sunday drunken harassments.
Sitting down in the train, bothered by the loud voice of a drunk, but she is not afraid any more, she knows she is stronger than all that. He mumbles and he mumbles, and then he throws a line. He thinks that people are listening to him but no one even cares about what he is saying.
She wants to just delve deep into her thoughts, her plans, her dreams.
He is provoking other people so they pay attention to him but he doesn’t even know what he is talking about.
Just the look of his drunken face is so despicable… he is giving her a headache now… Oh Thank God he finally got off the train, and now she can swim deep in the ocean of her thoughts, she felt thankful her left so all the emotions he stirred in her would stop, but will they stop? Or she will take it out on herself or someone else? Now here comes her stop, she better get ready to get off.
Gendercise
Change the Gender of one of the character of the story, without changing anything else, and read it out again alongside the original. What happens? How much of the story is the same? How much of it changes or shifts and why? This is an excellent way to bring preconceptions to surface or to spot them in the prose.
Sitting down in the train, bothered by the loud voice of a drunk, but he is not afraid any more, he knows he is stronger than all that. The drunk mumbles and he mumbles, and then he throws a line. He thinks that people are listening to him but no one even cares about what he is saying.
The young man wants to just delve deep into his thoughts, his plans, his dreams, but the drunk is provoking other people so they pay attention to him but he doesn’t even know what he is talking about.
Just the look of his drunken face is so despicable… he is giving him a headache now… Oh Thank God he finally got off the train, and now he can swim deep in the ocean of his thoughts, he felt thankful that the drunk left so all the emotions he stirred in him would stop, but will they stop? Or he will take it out on himself or someone else? Now here comes his stop, he better gets ready to get off.
Day 07
Creative Writing Work-shy
By Ali Smith
This article is full of writing exercises so I’ll try to do one exercise a day.
A useful Exercise called Image-Music-Text
This is an exercise best done quickly. It can double as a poem in its own right.
Write down the first image that comes into your head.
Write down the first emotion that comes into your head.
Write down the first line that comes into your head.
It can be the first line for a story.
It can be the first line for a poem.
It can be the first line for anything.
Write down a different emotion.
Write down a different first line.
Write down a different image.
Write down another first line.
Write down another emotion.
Write down another image.
Write down an image that is an emotion (i.e. that will act as one).
Write down a first line that is an emotion (i.e. that will act as one).
Write down an image that is a first line (i.e. that will act as one).
Write down the emotion without mentioning the emotion.
Write down a first line that’s nothing but image.
Now remove the image (so that its absence can be felt).
Ok though at some point its all seemed greek to me but on my way home on the bus I started writing this exercise. So bare with me because the outcome seemed so silly to me.
A flower in the morning light
Waiting and anticipating the unknown
I went to work today
A sunny beach and golden sand
My heart is filled with gratitude
I’m right here and now today
Once upon a time a princess
So dark the night without him
This stop is not where I get off
Inspired by the surroundings
It looks so peaceful here tonight
The graves are so grey
It took me so much time
I feel so empty inside
Yellow leaves are falling down
The sky is grey with sadness
As it is full of tears
The greenery all surrounds me
My heart is crushed inside
An empty street at night
Nothing is here today
See, I warned you and told you the result is not satisfactory, so you can comment but no need to be sarcastic alright?!
Day 06 21/ 11/ 09
Chapter 02
Training the eye by Julia Bell
A good writer must have an eye for details, it’s not just any detail that a writer looks for, it’s the telling detail like the moment when the woman in the chip shop, ordering double egg and chips, dropped her purse and her Weight Watchers membership card fell out.
Describe your world to yourself as you move around it. What best describes your living room? your street? Your town? Who lives here? Write lists of words and phrases and try to be as precise as possible in your observations.
There was no exercise in this one, I just after reading this entry I started to pay attention to all things happening around me and writing them in my notebook.
