Story Sprouts is Visiting Just Jemi Today!

Hello writercizers!

Story Sprouts is visiting Just Jemi today. The topic is .... The Beauty of a Moment and you'll find a bonus writercize hiding in the post to help you get to the essence of story-telling.

Head on over there to visit Jemi and me, and give the exercise a try!

Thanks Jemi for hosting!

xoxo

Hip! Hip! Hooray! Three Cheers for Story Sprouts!

Hear ye! Hear ye!

I am pleased to announce today is the official release date for

Story Sprouts: CBW-LA Writing Day and Anthology 2013, a collection of stories by members of the Children's Book Writers of Los Angeles created during a one day creative Writing Day workshop this past June.

It is a BIG accomplishment for our group, founded in 2010 by Nutschell Anne Windsor of The Writing Nut, and I am so excited. The book comes complete with 10 writing exercises, a bunch of writing tips and techniques, prompts, and - best of all - a glimpse at the talent of 19 published and aspiring children's book authors.

We've been highlighting those authors on our Facebook page for the past month, so take a look!

Nutschell spearheaded the workshop and our board members collected the anthology entries, which I then compiled and edited for the book. I also took her fantastic workshop presentation and translated it into a narrative form so that writers could follow along from home.

If you like to writercize, chances are you will be a fan of the exercises and prompts. And if you love to support and discover new talent, this is the place to look. I was floored by the stories that came out of three hours of writing and revising, from story seed to complete product! 

Each author contributed two pieces - one poem or short prose "On Writing," and one short story based on a photo prompt and exercise called Shopping for Story Ideas. Our writers played with voice and point of view during revision exercises.

Our Launch party is this Saturday, so if you are in the L.A. area, I'd love for you to attend and support these great writers! (Details at www.cbw-la.org)

After the launch, we will be going on an around the world BLOG TOUR, so if you are interested in obtaining a complimentary copy for a fair review on your blog, or if you'd like to interview Nutschell or me, please leave a comment here and we'll get in touch! 

Thank you for your readership and support!

And - I will see you tomorrow for a very fun Weekly Writercize! ;)

10 Questions with Ian Doescher, Best-Selling Author of William Shakespeare's Star Wars

Ian Doescher, photo by Shan Applegate

Ten Question with Ian Doescher,  
Author of William Shakespeare's Star Wars


Today I am honored to host Ian Doescher, friend and New York Times Best-Selling Author (!) of William Shakespeare's Star Wars. My friendship with Ian pre-dates his writing career, and it has been quite the whirlwind adventure watching his burgeoning writing career! He still maintains a nine to five day job, but he and his family are enjoying quite the voyage around the country this summer to launch his book.

William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Doescher

Please welcome Ian and feel free to leave a question or comment for him in the comments section! I'm sure he'd love to connect with fans and future readers, as well as all of you aspiring writers and authors who read this blog.







Here goes!

1. First things first, let's get something out of the way. My mom taught you in elementary school, I'm featuring you on my blog, you're married to my childhood best friend, and you now own my grandparents' house. Let's call a spade a spade. To me, this all means - my family is directly responsible for your genius. Thoughts?




ID: Definitely.  In fact, the idea didn't come to me until al of those events had happened, so it must be due to the perfect alignment of the Garrigues planets.(Ha! Thanks for indulging me.)

2. Kidding! Seriously, you were already a genius. I think. We just get the honor of knowing the man who married the literary titan of William Shakespeare with the film titan of George Lucas' Star Wars in person. Lucky us. :)... So, how the heck did you come up with the idea to marry the two? Did you just see potential dollar signs dancing in front of your eyes with the realization that you are taking the world's two most popular franchises and meshing them into one? This is like real-life literary Frankenstein.

ID: There was a lot of serendipity involved.  I watched the Star Wars trilogy with some friends from high school in April last year, then read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (published by Quirk Books), and right after that went to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with my family.  It was this mix of things swirling around in my subconscious -- mashup-literature, Star Wars and Shakespeare -- that put the idea in my head.  And of course I knew I was picking two hugely popular cultural icons, so though I can't claim to have had visions of dollar signs, I will admit to thinking there was a good chance it would be successful.

3. Would you say that conjuring up Shakespeare and Han Solo was more inspirational or frightening? Big shoes to fill. Did you ever find yourself crying, "I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!"

ID: There were definitely moments when I thought to myself, "I'm having a hard enough time even getting this line into iambic pentameter, to say nothing of being clever or witty or metaphorical or whatever."  I really have no idea how Shakespeare did it.  And I knew I would be watched closely by every Star Wars fan everywhere for how I handled a few scenes.  So far, so good.  I haven't been accosted on the street.  Yet.

4. This is your first book. (Congrats!!) What surprised you about the publishing industry?

ID: First of all I have to admit to incredible luck in getting this book published.  I emailed Quirk Books with the idea, they responded and said they would read a sample, I wrote a sample, and they wrote back and said, essentially, "let's do it."  All just under a year ago today.  It's not supposed to happen like that, and I don't take my luck for granted.  The big surprises along the way are little things I've learned -- things like how complex a literary contract can be, how early a final manuscript is needed to hit a certain publication date, and just how many copies a book sells when it becomes a bestseller (fewer than you probably think).  I was surprised on all three of those, and others.

5. What advice would you have to unpublished writers?

ID: Keep trying.  Don't be afraid to email people out of the blue with your samples.  Find an agent.  Do it because it gives you joy, not because you think it will be a career.

6. What's your next project? Walt Whitman's Avatar? Herman Melville's Titanic? George Carlin's Simpsons? F. Scott Fitzgerald's ET?

ID: I love the idea of Herman Melville's Titanic -- wish I'd thought of that one.  It would have 400 pages of intense details about glacial formations, the Atlantic ocean and the ship itself, and then 25 pages of Kate and Leo's romance.  For my next project, I think it would be great fun to do the rest of the original Star Wars trilogy -- there's more I can do there, I think.  I'm developing a children's book with a friend of mine, too.  So we'll see!  I will say that for the last several months, knowing my first book was coming out, I have felt an intense pressure to figure out what the next one will be.

7. Who are your literary heroes? (Clearly, we already know one of them.)

ID: Alphabetically -- since I wouldn't dare rank them -- and ranging from long dead to still writing: Jane Austen, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, David James Duncan, Tana French, Theodor Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss), Alex Haley, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Herman Melville, Sena Jeter Naslund, William Shakespeare (indeed!), Zadie Smith.

8. Please share your bio in iambic pentameter.





ID:

Meet Ian Doescher, now age thirty-six,

Who all his life has loved the Star Wars flicks.

In eighth grade he discovered Startford's Bard,

And for that gentle poet he fell hard.

A Portland native, Ian travelled east,

And spent twelve years in higher ed (at least!).

Now back in Portland, he enjoys his life

With two great kids and world's most awesome wife.

This William Shakespeare's Star Wars, his first book,

Is something that he hopes you'll give a look!

9. Please tell me why everyone should buy your book in iambic pentameter.


ID:  
‘Tis said that William Shakespeare, all his days,
Hath written only thirty-seven plays.
‘Tis said, as well, George Lucas never slipp’d
To Stratford, so to write his famous script.
But what if those two souls had been as one,
Their works combin’d as not to be outdone?
What if, long time ago in days of yore,
The bard hath written Star Wars, Ep’sode Four?
What if A New Hope were young Shakespeare’s work?
Would not such an event be thought a quirk—
An accident of time and history,
And sign of a galactic mystery?
Good souls, to thee my news I do rehearse:
Of th’Star Wars story penn’d in Shakespeare’s verse.
Hast thou e’er wondered how Luke’s thoughts did run,
When he saw Tatooine’s great double sun?
Or hast thou heard the dirge that Leia sang
Once Alderaan hath gone out with a bang?
How did the knave Han Solo understand
His transformation unto hero grand?
Upon these answers thou shalt have thy looks
In William Shakespeare’s Star Wars from Quirk Books.
The book is at a bookstore near to thee,
And always, friends, the Force with you shall be.

10. Any last words for William Shakespeare, George Lucas or Quirk Books?

ID: Thank you, thank you, and thank you.  All three have have been huge and very kind to me (in different ways) throughout this process.

BONUS Question - This interview is coming out just after you learned your book debuted at #12 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction best selling list. WOW! Share your giddy joy with the world in a sentence.

ID: The news about the Times list has been unbelievable for me because I'm just a normal guy who had an idea; I am beyond honored to be on the list.  (I cheated and separated two sentences by a semicolon!)

Ian - Thanks for taking this interview. May The (Sales) Force Be With You!

And for all you writercizers out there, may this interview inspire a writercize! Pick an author and match it to a seemingly unrelated film, song or play. See what magic transpires! I always love to see your work, so please share as you are willing in the comments section!

Comments welcome directed at Ian or in response to the suggested writercize.

Opening - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.15

Hello writercizers! More than half-way through A to Z now. How's it going? Are you meeting lots of great new bloggers and filling your blog with some good content in the meantime?

Today, I am doing a rerun of a previous guest post by Brianna R. - all about opening sentences. Good luck, and enjoy! ~Alana

Good morning, Writercizers! Are you ready to work out those writing muscles? 

Wait, I can’t hear you…

Alright! That’s the spirit! Let’s get moving!

First let’s stretch a bit – crack your knuckles, wiggle those fingers and take a few deep breaths! Now we’re ready to begin.

As writers we all know how important the first sentence of our story is. It’s the hook that’s either going to capture the attention of editors and readers or bore them to tears. No pressure, right?

Not if we are regularly working out our writing muscles! Here’s an exercise focusing on writing strong first sentences:

writercize: Read the back-cover blurb of a book and then write an opening sentence. 

The beauty of this exercise is that not only does it allow you to practice writing an attention-grabbing opening sentence; it could also be a stepping stone to an original book of your own!

You are free to use whatever back-cover book blurb you like or use the three samples from the genres of science fiction, mystery and romance below. Write a first sentence for all three, or just one, and share it in the comments section.

Science Fiction

On the North Pole of Pluto there stands an enigma: a huge circle of standing blocks of ice, built on the pattern of Earth’s Stonehenge –but ten times the size, standing alone at the farthest reach of the Solar System. What is it? Who came there to build it?

The secret lies, perhaps, in the chaotic decades of the Martian Revolution, in the lost memories of those who have lived for centuries.

~Icehenge by Kim Stanley Robinson, 1984, ISBN 0-312-86609-7~

Mystery

Not much happens in Contrary, West Virginia –a sleepy town with failing coal mines, a few old moonshine stills, and an urgent need for revenue. A federal grant for a nonexistent bus system seemed just the ticket…if only the government auditor, sent to look things over, hadn’t drunk to much white lightening. And ended up dead.

Now his successor, Owen Allison, has come down from D.C. to check out the situation. Disgruntled with his life inside the Beltway, Owen is willing to give Contrary’s officials the benefit of the doubt –and himself some time to romance Mary Beth, the alluring town controller. He soon feels like seventeen different kinds of fool. Because something has long been fermenting in Contrary besides corn mash. Another body has been found. And Owen may be next…unless he uncovers the big secrets hidden in the hearts of a small Appalachian town.

~The Contrary Blues by John Billheimer, 1998, ISBN 0-440-23504-9~

Romance

Innocence was the only word to describe Mary Frances Murphy. Expelled from a convent, her only sin was desire: For intimacy. For experience. For true carnal knowledge. Once forbidden, these things were now within her reach –as she searched for her sister’s killer in a world of staged seduction, virtual passion, and fantasy made flesh. But Mary Frances had never even been touched by a man…let alone a man like Webb Calderon. A man whose erotic finesse was as vast –and dangerous—as his empire. A man who could devour her innocence…and kill her with pleasure.

~ Innocence by Suzanne Forster, 1997 ISBN 0-425-15663-X~

Click "read more" for Brianna's sample response:

How in the World? - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.8

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: Write about how something happens, or how something works.

You may pick any topic in the world (or beyond!), but here are a few questions to get you started:

• How do clouds form?
• How do birds fly?
• How do seeds turn to plants?
• How does the tooth fairy know when to visit?
• How do animals know how to swim?

Fiction and nonfiction writers alike can benefit from an exercise to uncover how things work. 

Fiction writers may tap into mythology or creative writing to come up with a fictional account of how real things happen, or create a believable answer to a false premise. 

Nonfiction writers can brush up on research as well as writing clarity and organization skills.
 
I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share your attempt with the world in your comment! 

Click "read more" for writercizer (fictional) sample response. 

Boomerang: A Mirrored Beginning and Ending - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.2

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: Challenge yourself to a little creative flash fiction or poetry. Throw out the traditional concept of beginning, middle and end and merge beginning with end. How? 

Begin and end a sentence, paragraph, short story or poem with the same word. 

Hence, the boomerang - send out a single word and bring it back to round out the story or poem.

I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share it with the world. 

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response - a poem beginning and ending with moon.

Free Wrii--iiiting - writercize #193

It's hard for me not to hear Tom Petty "Free Falling" in my head when I think of free writing, hence the extra i's. Just imagine the long drawn-out melody as you read it.

Recently, the fabulous local writing group, Children's Book Writers of Los Angeles, aka CBW-LA, revamped our website. As the publications editor, I am responsible for spearheading a quarterly newsletter (tick tock, tick tock) as well as populating the website with writing prompts. They are a tad more sterile than my twisting and turning writercize set-ups, but the gist is essentially the same. In order to succeed at writing, one must ... write. Anything at all. Even frequent e-mail can hone your skills as long as you don't take too many short-cuts.

When it comes to my work, I spend most of my writing time in my head, composing the outline and constructing a lead, editing fluff, tapping into the voice I want in my piece. That way, when I sit down to write, it pours out rather quickly and with nothing more than a quick edit or two the piece is ready to leave my hands and visit my trustworthy editor. Often, I find the story takes an unexpected turn or two as I clickity-clack on my keyboard, but that just means my subconscious is doing its job of finding the story's flow.

When it comes to my blog, there are days when an entire post has appeared in my mind ahead of time, but oftentimes, especially as it pertains to my sample writercize, what you see is what you get. Raw and unedited. Sometimes a little awkward, but generally, hopefully, worth getting to know.

Today's writercize is sheer instinctual writing. There is absolutely no editing, punctuation, capitalization, thought. It will be messy. But it will speak truth. And that is more important than precise construction, for without a heart, no story will pump life. That is true for every genre, at every age group. A great story speaks to the mind and emotion of your reader.

I borrowed and slightly adapted this writercize from a CBW-LA writing workshop I attended last Spring, and a highly truncated version of this post is available over at the CBW-LA website under writing prompts. (Visible to the public! Only members can comment, but anyone can find great writing prompts, events, challenges, lessons and more.) It calls for a timer and a pencil and paper or a keyboard.

writercize: Before you dive into your current manuscript, put yourself in the right mindset and allow your mind to free fall. Set a timer for 10 minutes and write - without punctuation or capitalization. Coherent and connected thoughts are not even necessary. 

This is your time to free write, within some guidelines. Find one theme or topic within your manuscript and use that as your free write title. From there, write any thoughts on the theme or topic. (Do not use this time to relate any free writing to the book or devise an outline.) 

If you are stuck even getting to a manuscript, try one of these free writes:

• Want to write for children? Free write about your favorite games and toys to play as a child.
• Want to write for teens? Recall the names of friends, activities you enjoyed, clubs and sports, even mistakes you made.
• Want to write poetry? Pick one element - earth, water, wind, fire.
• Thinking of nonfiction? Free write newsworthy events in the past year.

I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share it with the world. :)

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response - all about some of my favorite things to do as a child. So much fun to reminisce and get back to childhood!

writercize #190 - Firecracker

Well, that blog break took much more time than I expected! I don't believe I will post frequently throughout the summer, but hope to return to the #WeekendWritercize and three to four posts a week come school time late August, as well as finish out the missing letters from the #AtoZChallenge over the next few weeks.

So, what to write about? Today I had a little fun over at #5MinuteFiction to get the flash fiction writing bug going again, and was lucky enough to be selected as a finalist. It's a no cash operation, hosted by the lovely Nicole Wolverton, but it's always an honor to be recognized for 15 minutes of logorrhoea. If you read this shortly after posted, head on over and read through the entries for the prompt of "betrayal" and vote for your favorite.

I've been spending a lot of time writing true stories about city budgets and school districts and honorable citizens lately, so it was fun to shake off reality and have a little fun. I thought I would share it with you, while twisting in a little holiday cheer. 

Americans (and those living here) know that tomorrow is the 4th of July, or Independence Day, a day for barbecues and parades and strawberry/blueberry/cool whip salads and fireworks ... and maybe a little history lesson thrown into the mix. Let's go with the holiday theme and speed up the brain cells with some flash fiction.

writercize: In fifteen minutes or less, write a story, poem or character study inspired by the word "firecracker."

Click "read more" for writercize sample response.

Please share your sample as a comment, or link to your page! I always love to see the variety and talent that comes to light when readers try out the writercize.

And - if you are in the States, I wish you a happy and safe holiday tomorrow!

Take Five - writercize #189 #AtoZChallenge #FlashFiction

Five words is a writercize that I post every so often where I give you five words to use in a poem or short story. 

It is based on a writing prompt that my mom gave me when I was a young girl to help pass the time on airplanes and in cars, and to keep me in the educational mood during summers. She would write down a series of words in my notebook and encourage me to journal based on those words. It was not a creative fiction exercise at the time; the words were closely related to what we had done that day, but it stuck with me as a very useful exercise.

Take Five, today's writercize, takes the five words concept and twists it with a five minute time limit. I encourage you to go fictional, but if you are drawn to the words in a non-fiction or poetic way, go for it. The time limit puts the exercise squarely in a #FlashFiction state of mind.

For those unfamiliar with #FlashFiction, the net is rife with challenges and competitions on blogs that encourage bloggers and writers to write a short story with a quick turn-around. 

Some use photo prompts, some specific words, some first sentences, or combination of the above. Some set a limit with minimum or maximum words and others with an instant time limit. 

I host a weekend #FlashFiction here called #WeekendWritercize with rules that vary weekly (on hold until May 6 due to A to Z), but I highly recommend checking out any of the #FlashFiction challenges that follow today's writercize. 

It is a fabulous way to write in community, get inspired by other bloggers and push your personal writing limits!

writercize: Write a poem or short story using all of the following five words:

• sympathy
• contempt
• melt
• wisdom
• day

There is no minimum or maximum word limit, but watch the clock and write quickly! Five minutes max.

More #FlashFiction Around the Web:

Monday: Cara Michaels' #MenageMonday @caramichaels

Tuesday: Glitter Web #TuesdayTales @theglitterlady

Tuesday eve: Nicole Wolverton #5MinuteFiction @nicolewolverton

Wednesday: Lisa McCourt Hollar 55 Word Challenge @jezri1

Friday: Jen D #FridayPictureShow @JenD_author

Weekends: Right Here Of Course! #WeekendWritercize @alanagarrigues

This is NOT an exhaustive list, but these are some of my faves to play in. Sign up to follow these people on twitter to get reminder tweets.

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response.

Rewrite - writercize #187 #AtoZChallenge

A couple of months ago I attended a writing workshop led by the fabulous Nutschell of the blog The Writing Nut for Children's Book Writers of Los Angeles (CBW-LA) and one of the exercises I walked away with involved paraphrasing a passage in a novel in your own voice. Basically, tell the same story, but rewrite it in your own style.

Style is something that we have. It is the writing that comes naturally to us. It involves the way we organize our words and our thoughts, the language we use, the point of view we prefer. It is the intangible, yet very real, thumbprint of a writer.

To do this, Nutschell gave each of us a worksheet with several first paragraphs from recognizable books. She had us see how many of them we could recognize (book title and/or author) from the passage.

Once we identified the voice of the author, she had us take ten minutes to rewrite in our own voice, our own style. This is a great exercise for writers to use in order to practice our writing. It helps us in a couple of regards. 

For one, we can play with things like tone and verbiage and point of view without having to come up with the story on top of everything else. 

For another, it helps us get past that hump of writing like the book we just read. 

(We're chameleons, and whether we like it or not, we are influenced by what we read. I like to think I'm less influenced now than I used to be, but when I pick up my writings from 1st through 7th grade, I can tell you exactly which novel or book series I was reading when I wrote my story because either the story or the voice is so similar. A LOT of babysitting stories in the days of The Babysitter's Club, a fair amount of influence from Nancy Drew and Sweet Valley Twins, and then the random influence of books like Trumpet of the Swan, Charlotte's Web, Harriot the Spy and authors like Roald Dahl and Madeleine L'Engle.)

Today, I invite you to rewrite a paragraph from a recognizable book in your own voice. You can pick any of the three paragraphs that follow, or pick a favorite book you have at home.

writercize: Rewrite one of the following passages in your own voice, or use a passage from a book you have at home. Feel free to split it up into more than one paragraph, elaborate, or cut down! Just be sure to take it into your voice.

• "When Mrs. Frederick C. Little's second son arrived, everybody noticed he was not much bigger than a mouse. The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way. He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse's sharp nose, a mouse's tail, a mouse's whiskers, and the pleasant shy manner of a mouse." - from Stuart Little by E.B. White

• "Clare: It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays." - from The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

• "It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. and we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!" - from Anthem by Ayn Rand

Have fun with it! Leave your writercize rewrite as a comment - I love to see what people come up with! Please be sure to leave your URL so I can pay you a visit as well.

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response based on Stuart Little (excerpt and sample response from that workshop).

Insult Rounds - writercize #178 #AtoZChallenge

A couple of weeks ago as I was making my list of A to Z topics, I was in a bit of a funk after a series of grocery store run-ins with rather nutty people. 

First, there was the woman in line who scowled and coldly told me to keep "the children" (which read in her tone more like "the mutts," "the aliens," or "the disgusting small creatures I am horrified to be subjected to") away from her, despite the fact there were at least 15 feet and my body between her and my bitties. Guess she was allergic to kids.

Then, the next day was the incident of the drunken overgrown frat boy in his mid-40s or so who walked out of Trader Joe's at high noon, put his groceries in the trunk, and proceeded to walk to the wall in front of the car where I was loading my kids, drop his zipper and pee all over the wall. Again, noon. Broad daylight. On the side of a store with a very nicely equipped restroom inside.

Uggh. 

I am not one for shouting or insults, and I was sufficiently shocked by both incidents to give dirty looks and leave it alone there, but I was wishing I had just the right barbs to throw back at both. Particularly the woman. The man I had plenty to say to, but was a little nervous he would turn and give the girls a bigger show than I was prepared for, so I honked as I drove away instead, and about a dozen people turned to stare and shout to him once my kids were safely out of the viewing area.

Instead, I kept my comebacks to both in my head.

Insults can be a lot of fun to write, and really spice up your dialogue. The literary king of insults, to me, was none other than William Shakespeare. If you are familiar with his insult prowess, you will recognize many of his insults were loosely tied to the character's career or place in society.

Here are a few examples, from the website Shakespeare Insults.

• "I do desire we may be better strangers." - As We Like It
• "The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes." - Corianus
• "A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition." - King Lear (Ouch!!!)
• "Thou art a Castilian King urinal!" - The Merry Wives of Windsor

There is also a fun Shakespearean insult randomizer at Shakespearean Insulter if you want to be surprised one insult at a time.

If you always thought Shakespeare was difficult to understand, look through his insults and you'll find he is actually pretty modern and understandable in his ability to cut a person down, and topics are common. He focuses on sex, food, intellect and potty talk for the majority of his jabs.

Now, mind you, I do not endorse going forward and insulting people in real life. However, I think that playing with insults in your writing and dialogue, even journaling, can inspire great creativity and release some of the stressors of everyday life!

image courtesy bobmobile photobucket

writercize: Pick a career type - real or imagined (i.e. actor, doctor, lawyer, teacher, plumber, housewife, farmer, dentist, superhero). 

Now create an insulting dialogue between two competitive people in that career field, using creative references to the career or character prototype in the exchange when possible.

If you can't make a dialogue, feel free to write insulting one-liners for the chosen career instead!

I have no doubt many of you will be able to knock this one out of the ballpark. It's definitely a challenge for me, but I look forward to some catharsis.

Leave your writercize as a comment and be sure to include a link to your blog so I can come visit you!

Note: I will delete any content that is offensive on the basis of religion, politics, age, sex, race or skin color. This is just for fun playing with career insults, so please keep it relatively light and on point.

Please click "read more" for writercizer sample response about an exchange between two mailmen.

Gifted - #WeekendWritercize 10 #AtoZChallenge

Welcome to Week 10 of the #WeekendWritercize competition!

Join in and spread the word! 

(and follow me on Twitter for updates: @alanagarrigues)

For the month of April, the #WeekendWritercize is linked up with the A to Z Challenge, so the first letter of the #WeekendWritercize title will follow the A to Z schedule. If you are visiting via A to Z, I encourage you to join in this fun #FlashFiction challenge!

writercize: Write a scene in which a character opens the front door to find a box. It is labeled like a gift, but it is unexpected and the exterior of the box does not indicate the giver.

To enter the competition, leave your entry as a comment below. Be sure to include your Twitter handle and link to your blog or website. Tweet and Facebook fellow entries using the hashtag #WeekendWritercize.

Since this blog is used by teachers and students, I kindly request that you abstain from profanity and gratuitous violence. (In other words, keep it PG-13.) If your story can't be told without, just provide a link to your post on your own website along with a disclaimer.

Competition closes at 11:59 p.m. Sunday night (Pacific time). Winner announced sometime Monday, often knocking on midnight's door.

This week's winner and honorable mention(s) will receive a #WeekendWritercize Winner badge to proudly display on their website.

First Kisses - writercize #176 #AtoZChallenge

Ready for a little romance? How about comedy? Or perhaps a brush with that gangly, awkward teenage feeling? Why not write a scene about a first kiss?

First kisses hold so much expectation, and there are so many variables at play with timing and chemistry and ambiance that there can't be many more emotionally charged and challenging scenes to play with.

The first boy who kissed me did so at a movie theater. In the back row "so the crowds isn't annoyed if I laugh too loud." I liked him enough; he was outspoken and took conversational risks which piqued my quieter self's curiosity. But as kisses go, I so wasn't into the timing of it all. It was like, blech, all these people around and I'm really trying to watch the movie! Try again, silly boy!

Tap into that side of you that loves the romance, comedy or angst of first kisses and write it out.

If you completely cringe at the idea of writing of romance, feel free to share a story of a different type of first kiss, such as that from a parent to child, child to parent, new car owner to vehicle ... whatever strikes you.

writercize: Create a fictional (or non-fictional) scene about a first kiss.

Think about all those things that happen like distractions and nose bumps and inaccurate assumptions, and suck everything you can out of them for inspiration!

Leave your story as a comment, and be sure to leave your blog's URL so I can visit you too!  

****Note: Two of my readers e-mailed me to let me know they are having difficulty leaving a comment (THANK YOU!) so, if you have trouble and feel inclined to comment, you can leave a remark on the blog's Facebook page and I will visit you back. I'll try to figure out what else is going on with blogger.

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response about a non-romantic sort of first kiss.

Five Words - writercize #162

Phew! Ever have one of those weeks where your brain is chasing its tale in circles, and you just can't get out of your head's auto-replay button? That's me this week! As much as my brain is telling me that the extent of my writing skills is parallel to Bart Simpson rewriting a single sentence infinite times on a board, my fingers are trying to fight that and break out with something new!

So, while I still appear incapable of writing an all-new writercize, I will forfeit power to my fingers and allow them to go, go, go with a recycled writercize. This is an exercise where I give you five words and you create something inspired by them. The words are new, but the concept is old!

writercize: Create a short story or scene using the following words:

• assist
• next
• station
• teaspoon
• other

(randomly selected by flipping through the pages of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and pointing at a word - I have yet to read the book so it should not heavily influence the story)

Please share your result as a comment or link to your response on your website!

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response.

Word Shower - writercize #155

This writing prompt will literally make you want to sing out, "It's raining words!"

Well, maybe not quite, but it should shake a little brainstorm loose at the very least. I was inspired to post this exercise after a very rainy day in LA yesterday. It may not rain often here, but when it rains the skies open up and the water pours out of the sky. So, feeling the effects of the weather, I want you to take a word snd throw out a laundry list of word associations to go along with it. These could be adjectives, adverbs, associated memories, related nouns, whatever you see fit.

writercize: Pick one of the atmospheric words below, and write a list of 10-20 words or short phrases that you associate with the given word. When your list is complete, use a few of the to write a poem, short story or descriptive sentence.

• cloud
• rainbow
• flood
• sprinkle
• sunny

The word associations do not need to be weather related, and references to homophones okay. I'd love to see what you came up with!

Share your result as a comment below, or if you post it to your blog please share the link!

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response - 20 words and a brief paragraph based on the prompt "flood."

Bathing Penguins - writercize #150

Posts have been a bit heavy lately with real world applications and serious tones, so I want to lighten things up and give you the chance to tell a story. And what animal could be more fun to highlight than the dapper little waddler, our friend the penguin?

writercize:  Tell a story, any genre (non-fiction or journalism also perfectly acceptable), prompted by the two following words: penguin, bath.

I look forward to reading about your bathing penguins!

Click "read more" for writercizer fictional (children's) sample response.

Santa: Around the World in 26 Hours? - writercize #144

Ever wonder how Santa could deliver gifts to all the children who celebrate Christmas around the world in one night? 

Thanks to the earth's rotation and long nights in some areas, The Dinner Party hosts told Madeline Brand of NPR last Friday that Santa has about 26 hours to deliver the gifts. That still breaks down to a LOT of gift giving, chimney sliding, sled flying and cookie eating per second. 365,000 to be exact. And they only included Christian children in the world, who are clearly not the only ones who celebrate the holiday. I know plenty of agnostics and atheists who hang stockings for the kids!

So, how does Santa do it? Magic? Science? And how does he get in the houses without chimneys? Does he still wear the toasty red suit while delivering in the southern hemisphere?

Let your imagination run wild, and tell us how it's done!

writercize: Create an argument for how Santa Claus manages to deliver gifts to 365,000 children per second.

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response using the space-time continuum.

This post partially inspired by the prompt "wonder" through the Group Blogging Experience hosted by the "wonder"ful Beth Grace. There's always room for more group bloggers - check it out!

Guest Writercize - Mike Miller - Let the words simmer

I am very excited to introduce you all to Mike Miller, a fellow Group Blogging Experience (#GBE2) participant and a person whose words never fail to make me laugh.  Almost always out loud.  Read this writercize, try it out, enjoy, and visit Mike's blog.  You'll be glad you did.

Now, passing the virtual mic right on over to ... Mike!

Hi Folks,

What say we skip all the writer cizer jazz and just do some good old calisthenics?  No?  Good idea!  Let's sit here and use the old noodle to try and come up with some good literary pasta.  Well I do have something of an idea for this exercise, so here goes:

I'm thinking of a word prompt kind of challenge.  

writercize:  Please pick up the nearest book and turn to page four.  Pick out the noun closest to the upper left corner and use that for the subject of an up and coming sentence.  Page two has the verb, the one you find closest to the upper right corner, and the object is on page three near the lower right corner of the page.  You may be wondering how I know that, but just trust me, I do.

Oh boy.  NOW I look around and find that the closest book to me is the 1996 Physician's Desk Reference!  Here is my sentence, gleaned, as it were, from the corners of the three pages:  Acetaminophen contains doses.  

I am willing to bet that your base sentence will be a lot easier than mine, to turn into a short story.   That's right.  The challenge here is to take your obscure sentence and expand it three times; first from your randomly formed sentence into three coherent full blown sentences based on the idea of the original, and then into a decent tease of a story of one or two paragraphs.  That's only expanded two times?  Right again.  The third time I want you to turn your few paragraphs into a full fledged best selling novel or, as in my case, a medical school textbook.    In each step, it is only an idea derived and descended from your first sentence that must survive.

Now for the kicker, just in case you're still standing:  I want you to think about your primordial sentence for at least one hour before committing your three sentence rewrite to paper or screen. And then please let the ruminating juices flow for another hour or more so the next version of your idea has had time to sprout wings or leaves or fur, or something equally useful.

By the way, there is a point to all this.  I have so often observed that my first idea, while practically genius, can ALWAYS be improved upon.  Sometimes even by me!  Seriously, while I may be quick with the quip, or an inane observation, there have been a million times when I realized later that I could have said  “________”!  Or more to the point here; even after steadily laboring over some article or essay for a long time, I have been struck later by the realization that a major element is fatally flawed,  that I should have taken another approach altogether, or that I killed the hero off in the first paragraph.  Let time pass.  Give the mind a rest.  And then see what comes.

(Mike's sample writercize response below:)

Here's my effort.  And yes, I will heed my own prescription and let an hour pass before expanding on my own medicinal therapeutics.

2:44 PM     

Acetaminophen contains doses.

7:33 PM

The stands are full of excited fans this afternoon.
The trucks and jeeps are lined up, each one full of gas and ready to go the distance.
Enough delight will fly from those big tires today to cover each onlooker with inches of                      mud.
                   

12:20 PM (the next day)

Byron stepped hard on the gas but his bald tires were even worse than he knew.  While a dozen other trucks flew ahead and buried his windshield in their wakes, way overburdening his poor wipers, Byron just slowly slid back and forth, even in the thin mud at the starting line.  A glance out the side window showed him that the hundreds of people in the stands were missing the excitement at the first turn; they were all watching his four tires spin up a thin spray of misty mud, and they were laughing.

But one more glance made everything all right.  It had been a long hard year, and Byron had sadly discovered how disasters pile on.  The furnace died last Winter, the basement flooded in the Spring, and the long hot Summer was full of miscellaneous breakdowns and work lay-offs. He couldn't even afford to replace the AC so his wife had been stuck sweltering in the house, until today.  Byron looked across again, astonished at Minnie's great big smile where she sat in her brand new, mud-covered wheel chair. The sight made even his frustration at having to make the 'right' decision melt away.  Minnie never realized that By had traded in the new tires he bought last year, anticipating this very race, to buy her chair.  And as she watched him continue to glide back and forth, now somehow behind the starting line, and then heard him start to laugh out loud, she knew that while pills of pain may come in regular doses, a good man's love covers all like a flood.

Deja Vu Blogfest: Fairy Tale Rewrite Flashback (writercize #9)

Welcome to writercize, and my entry for the Deja Vu Blogfest hosted by bloggers Nicole Ducleroir, DL Hammons, Katie Mills and Lydia Kang! My blog combines fiction, nonfiction and word play exercises, so picking a deja vu entry was an entire challenge in its own. I consider myself first and foremost a nonfiction writer who loves to play with fiction for fun and inspiration.

I wanted to select something from the very first days of my blog, so this entry is from March of this year, the month I launched the site. I chose the fairy tale rewrite because it's whimsical and fun and gives the writer ample opportunity to work with something familiar from a brand new perspective.

Read on!

Witches, goblins, fair maidens, horses, magic spells, evil stepmothers, glorious kings ...

Fairy tales are a lovely way to pass stories and lessons from one generation to the next, bridging age gaps and cultural differences.   Through fairy tales we learn about romance and love, heroism, fear, honesty, danger, the innocence of youth, all within a framework allowing magic and imagination to permeate the story.  One high school English teacher used to call accepting that magic the "willing suspension of disbelief."

Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm Brothers are probably the best known fairy tale authors, but much of what they wrote for children was simply writing down and publishing a version of the stories handed down around a kitchen fire for centuries before.

Most fairy tales focus on one character and build a supporting cast around the lead.  Today's writercize shifts the focus onto one of the supporting characters (i.e. Cinderella's stepmother, one of the Seven Dwarfs, Prince Charming, the Big Bad Wolf from The Three Little Pigs).

writing exercise:  Pick a well-known fairy tale and retell it from the perspective of a supporting character.  You may choose to write in either the first or third person and you have full creative control over how closely you follow the original storyline.

PS - If you're looking for a fun, interactive retelling of classic fairy tales per Grimm, check out Grimms' Fairy Tales on the National Geographic website.  Very fun!

(To see the writercizer sample response about the Queen's perspective from the story of The Princess and The Pea, click "read more.")

Next Word Five Words Mash-Up - writercize #142

Time for a twist on the next word game. For those of you unfamiliar with next word, it's a fun little word association game where I give you five random words and you write down your instinctual "next word" - the first word that comes to mind.  It's great to see how different minds can come up with vastly different thoughts out of the same word.

example - If I give you the word "grass," you might say green, or fed, or smoke, or picnic, or cow, or hula ... all can be traced back.  You could also think of something more obscure, like "kiss" or "love" if you had your first kiss in a field.  Some explain the connection, and others leave the back story blank.

Next word is a game I like to play every month or so.  As Tara Tyler, one very talented writercizer, once commented, "i love these! you should give us a state of mental health reading from them =)"

For the twist tonight, read on to the writercize below.

writercize: Look at the list of words below and type your instinctual response to each word. Feel free to simply state the next word or evaluate your response.

• word
• tape
• train
• small
• pack

Now for the real twist ... if you're up for the challenge ... create a short story or poem using your five new words. You do not need to reference any of the original words, but you should include all five new words.

As always, leave your writercize attempt as a comment, or link to your blog if you post it there. I love to see what you come up with!

Click "read more" to read writercizer sample response about wolves.