Writing Exercise: The Sensitive

I am not particularly proud of this peice... but if I sorted through my peices and only showed you the good ones I would feel a little cheap. This Exercise is about using an object to try to define a develop a character. You describe the object instead of describing the person, but you accomplish the same thing, but it is much more stylish. Unfortunately my attempt looks sloppy at best, but I stand behind the exercise becuase I think it holds value in helping one learn to develop characters more creatively.

My browser isn't letting me put this in italics... so you will have to pretend... If you don't have the imigination to do that, you have no business reading a blog that is going to spend a lot of time talking about writing...

Start italics...

On the wall behind Randolf Grey's desk, mounted on cardstock, and set into a simple black frame was a cheque. It was the first Cheque Randolf Grey had ever for more than a five thousand dollars. The papaer was browned with age, the penmarks were fading and it had various bank stamps printed on it. Randolf remembered very well writing that cheque. He had come from a poor family, and Grey looked at that cheque demonstated who he had become: a magestic creature that had risen out of the ashes of poverty.

Randolf had made sure he recieved the cheque back after the bank had cleared it. It meant more than just money to him, it reminded him that in a long line of failures he alone had been a success. Whenever Grey was feeling discouraged he took a few minutes to look at the cheque on his office wall, to remember how he had to work to get where he was now. The cheque was for a local hospital in his home town, and was his way of giving a little back.

End italics...

I spent more time talking about grey, and strayed a little from the point of the exercise. I think I should have chosen a better object, but I was also on a time crunch. It isn't a great piece, but I am able to see ways to improve my writing as I read it.

The next piece I am going to post will be much better.

A weekly peak into my writing journal...

I decided that if I am going to keep this blog going I need to have something interesting for my readers to read. So I have decided that every wednesday I give you a peak into my journal. I will share a writing exercise, or excerpt from a story I may be working on. This week I will share the first writing exercise I did while in my creative writing class.

The way this Writing Exercise works is you randomaly select 10 words. You can ask other people, or pick them off pages of a book, however you want. You should have 7 nouns, and 3 verbs. In my class the prof took suggestions from the class and wrote them on the board. The 10 words were:

Abyss
Pencil
Sky Diving
Enveloped
Borrow
Cheese
Banana
Cocker Spaniel
Paris
and ....
Well I am not sure what the last word was becuase I either forgot to underline it in my peice, or didn't use it. (oops) You don't need to use the words in order, anything is fine. Here is my story.


I dropped my pencil over my list of potential vacation spots. The first was a dream of mine, Sky diving. I had always planned on going but the mindless abyss I had trudged through in life had, so far, kept me from it. I had not yet experienced being enveloped by nothing but the air around me. The next was an idea borrowed from many others: Paris, a trip I had always longed to do.

Before I had time to contemplate my list any further my dog, a cocker spaniel, crashed through the kitchen, jumping over the trash can. it's contents spilled over onto the floor; some old cheese, and a banana peel.

Sighing quietly to myself, I went to clean the mess, crumpling my list and adding it to the garbage as I did so.


Not a great peice of work, very unpolished, but that is kind of the purpose of the exercise; to try and piece a story together from very few, and unconnected words. It's a great exercise to try if you find yourself stuck with writers block.

Well I can't think of anything else I want to write right now, so I guess that is it. Feel free to let me know what you thought of the exercise or story, or to post your own.