Despite a daunting to-do list, I made time to do one writing exercise this morning.  I’m now on the third exercise in Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin, and each day I find myself looking forward to the hour I spend doing her exercises.

I’ve found that most of the exercises are things I’m already aware of in my writing because of teaching writing to middle schoolers.  Once you’ve had to teach the 6+1 Traits of Writing, you become more aware of what makes good writing.

But her exercises are still a fun challenge.  And it gets the words flowing faster than if I were to sit down and attempt to continue a manuscript.  And so far, I’ve been pretty pleased with what the exercises are producing.

Today’s exercise was to write a paragraph with short sentences (no more than 7 words) and then write another paragraph that is one long sentence.

Here are my results.  I’m doing every exercise with my Steampunk project in mind.  (And I really don’t know if the second sentence is grammatically correct… but it flows alright.  I can check it later if I end up using it in a draft.)

The door closed with a clatter.  She didn’t want me there.  I was a child.  They were adults.  But this room didn’t want me either.  I felt the cold.  I saw the dust stirring.  I knew I was not alone.

The mecha-carriage sputtered to a halt and within seconds the door was swinging open, and a world was revealed to me: a giant stone Mecha Fac with curls of steam rising from pipes like turrets into the misty air, air that was filled with noises–clanking, screeching, clicking, wailing, druming–which filled my overwhelmed ears and matched my overwhelmed eyes which saw more people than I’d encountered in my entire lifetime.

One thing I thought about while doing this exercise is how long a sentence is too long when writing for children?  At what point will the length of sentences shut down your readers?  I’m very alert to pacing and readability in what I write because it’s something that I evaluate a text on when choosing appropriate texts for my classroom.  Just something to think about…

Today’s writing exercise was to write with no punctuation.  No line breaks, paragraphs, nothing.  I thought the exercise would be rather pointless.  I figured it would just make me appreciate commas, periods, etc.  But the exercise caused me to focus on the rhythm of my writing, and I did not expect that.  Because I could not use punctuation, my brain tried to find other ways to make the writing flow smoothly.  After reading the results over, I found I did this two ways:

• Conjunctions (and, but, then)
• Repetition of words or phrases

This morning on CBS Sunday Morning, there was a segment on Keith Richards (Rolling Stones guitarist) that I really enjoyed.  He’s a far more traditional and normal guy than his reputation makes him out to be.

And while watching this piece, they spoke a bit about his creative process.  He spoke of the hard work, but also how guitar riffs would just come out of his fingers.

In reading bio pieces and watching interviews, I’ve come to notice three absolutes about creative greats (whether music, art, writing, design, etc.).

1. The passion, the calling, creating your art is unavoidable.
2. The process and the way in which great ideas come to your mind is mystifying.  They appear, they feel right, and you don’t know quite where they came from.
3. Hard work.  The true greats spend the hours it takes to get to the top.

I did a writing exercise today from LeGuin’s Steering the Craft that turned out really well and got me excited about a Steampunk novel that I’m itching to jump into.

The exercise focused on paying attention to the SOUND of your writing.  You could use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, made-up words, but NOT rhyme or meter.

I chose to write about the major settings in my upcoming Steampunk project:

1. A Factory
2. A Gothic Manor
3. An Abandoned Building