I apologize for not being on top of my game with this blog - we currently have some family issues were are dealing with right now and it is using the remaining amount of the time and energy I left. But I thought since I will be exceedingly busy week I could wrap up our first exercise. Leah mentioned what she wrote about on the last post already.
What did you write about?
I wrote about a place where I felt safe as a little kid - how I used to wonder out into the pasture when the grass was tall - like 3 or more feet tall and think. I would wonder out to some draw or corner and settle into a spot on the warm ground, knowing that no one could see me and I was perfectly hidden. Occasionally I could see through the grass and watch the happenings around my own house from the complete obscurity of my grass fox hole. My favorite time to take shelter in the grass was in the late evening as the summer sun began it's late retreat from the sky. There I was hidden, yet the horses knew where I was, so I also safe. Often after my gelding tracked me down I will hop up on his back without saddle or bridle or halter and take advantage of a free ride back to the barn.
CDN also sent me a copy of what she wrote - but for some reason I am not being able to get the text to show up on the blog. It's like it's here but it's showing up - oh well I will keep trying. Maybe Lisa will write in and post it as a comment as I continue to trouble shoot this issue....
Sorry about that.
Will post again as soon as I can with another exercise.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Welcome
I started this blog to give others and possibly myself a place to write and a place to share what we have written in order to improve our writing skills. All to often horse girls give up their dreams and hobbies to support what is most important to them – family, work (this can be chores too), and horses. While those are good priorities I don’t feel as though we should “have” to give those things up. I have noticed a lot of people out here in horsey blogger land are either writing a book, wanting to write a book, writing for a living or hobby, or they “used” to write.
I created this blog to help you and me – I am also one of the above. Sometimes just having a little structure, and knowing that other people are depending on you is just the encouragement some people need to get going. So each week (or so, we’ll see how easy or complicated this is) we will go over one writing exercise from what ever the featured book is that we are covering at the time, and then share as much as you want to from what you have written for that exercise with the group (you don’t have to share at all if you don’t want to). Others in the group can offer positive feedback and/or encouragement. I’ll also pick random days out to share pieces of work you’ve done or are working on that you’d like feedback on – and other days we’ll share a published piece that we like with the group.
Consider this "writing practice” – during writing practice you hone the skill of writing – we won’t be working on content to publish or anything fancy like that, spelling errors are ok, grammar errors are ok, what’s important is that you get your pen moving across the paper.
I like to gush when I am practicing – to me “gushing” means writing down exactly the first thing that comes to my mind and following that thought exactly as it comes down from my head to my hand. I turn my internal editor off – and just write. No one is trying to be perfect during writing practice and you will notice many styles – in fact people may change styles of writing during practice to see what best suits them. You can write “badly” during writing practice, and no one cares, it’s just practice.
It’s best to practice writing once a day so I keep a blank spiral notebook on hand to do just that in. I try to devote 15 minutes a day to writing practice. It doesn’t really matter what you write about as long as you are writing. When we write posts to our blogs, that’s more like writing in a personal journal that writing practice, although it does count somewhat. Writing practice goes beyond what we’ve done today or in the past week – it clears out your mind and getting the creative juices flowing.
I love to grab those spiral notebooks when they go on sale for “Back to School” for 10 cents a piece – you may want to pick one up if you don’t already have one. Find a favorite pencil or pen – something that is easy to write with and keep it with your notebook. A lot of people stay away from pencils as writing with them long term tends to tire your hand out quickly – but there are different types of lead that are easy to write with and mechanical pencils make it easier too.
I am not an expert or instructor I am just someone who loves to write and needs a good excuse to do so. I will share you the knowledge I have learned about writing (a lot of my ideas aren’t mine at all but belong to college instructors and different authors, I keep what works for me and ditch what doesn’t) – and I hope you share yours as well.
Post any questions you may have about this and I will answer them as to the best of my ability.
Are you ready?
Proceed to the next post and write. Don’t think too much about it start with the first thing that jumps in your head. Go!
I created this blog to help you and me – I am also one of the above. Sometimes just having a little structure, and knowing that other people are depending on you is just the encouragement some people need to get going. So each week (or so, we’ll see how easy or complicated this is) we will go over one writing exercise from what ever the featured book is that we are covering at the time, and then share as much as you want to from what you have written for that exercise with the group (you don’t have to share at all if you don’t want to). Others in the group can offer positive feedback and/or encouragement. I’ll also pick random days out to share pieces of work you’ve done or are working on that you’d like feedback on – and other days we’ll share a published piece that we like with the group.
Consider this "writing practice” – during writing practice you hone the skill of writing – we won’t be working on content to publish or anything fancy like that, spelling errors are ok, grammar errors are ok, what’s important is that you get your pen moving across the paper.
I like to gush when I am practicing – to me “gushing” means writing down exactly the first thing that comes to my mind and following that thought exactly as it comes down from my head to my hand. I turn my internal editor off – and just write. No one is trying to be perfect during writing practice and you will notice many styles – in fact people may change styles of writing during practice to see what best suits them. You can write “badly” during writing practice, and no one cares, it’s just practice.
It’s best to practice writing once a day so I keep a blank spiral notebook on hand to do just that in. I try to devote 15 minutes a day to writing practice. It doesn’t really matter what you write about as long as you are writing. When we write posts to our blogs, that’s more like writing in a personal journal that writing practice, although it does count somewhat. Writing practice goes beyond what we’ve done today or in the past week – it clears out your mind and getting the creative juices flowing.
I love to grab those spiral notebooks when they go on sale for “Back to School” for 10 cents a piece – you may want to pick one up if you don’t already have one. Find a favorite pencil or pen – something that is easy to write with and keep it with your notebook. A lot of people stay away from pencils as writing with them long term tends to tire your hand out quickly – but there are different types of lead that are easy to write with and mechanical pencils make it easier too.
I am not an expert or instructor I am just someone who loves to write and needs a good excuse to do so. I will share you the knowledge I have learned about writing (a lot of my ideas aren’t mine at all but belong to college instructors and different authors, I keep what works for me and ditch what doesn’t) – and I hope you share yours as well.
Post any questions you may have about this and I will answer them as to the best of my ability.
Are you ready?
Proceed to the next post and write. Don’t think too much about it start with the first thing that jumps in your head. Go!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Exercise Number 1
This is an exercise my favorite writing instructor at Whitworth University, Steve Ringo, used on all his classes almost everyday. It is how we began class, sit down, shut up, and write. I am going to start out with a few of these and see if I can recruit a small group the blog before we jump into a book.
Read each subject below carefully – for this group, because we are special, it will never to wrong to write about horses. If the subjects don’t include them and one of them brings to mind something about horses or about your horse/s that you wish to write about – fire away. These are “jumping off points” Steve called them. Wait until one of them catches your eye or jogs a memory – and start to write. If one of the subjects reminds of you something complete different, follow your writing and write about that - jump. Just try to remember how you got there – you may want to share it with the group later.
Pick one and only one.
Spend 20 minutes writing – no proofing – no revising, keep your fingers off the delete key and away from your eraser - for the most part anyway, its nice to be able to understand what you’ve written. Set your timer when 20 minutes is up – its up, be done. If all you can think about is what to get at the grocery store then at a last resort write that down, just write something.
Jump Off Points:
1) Write about your morning routine – what do you do when you first wake up?
2) Write about a new horse moment – when/how you got your new horse.
3) Write about a place where you felt safe as a child.
Don’t think about it too much – keep your hand moving, if it’s still your thinking too much.
Ready – Set – Go!
In a weeks time we will talk about what we wrote.
______________________________________________________
UPDATE: It will work like this.
It will work like this - and I will post this to the blog as well, cause that's a good question.
Take 15-20 minutes to complete the exercise, really there should be a strict limit on that because I don't want this take up too much time in our already busy lives, and knowing how busy we all are I was thinking of doing one exercise every week, if that goes great and everyone is comfortable with that we may to like 1 every 3 days.
Once you've completed the exercise wait and I will do another post asking people to talk about what they wrote.
You can talk about what you wrote if you want - if you don't want to that okay too using the comment section of that post. If you want to share what you've written with the group you can either post it to the comment section or you can send it to me in email form at inclined2ride@yahoo.com - and I will post add to that post.
Some in class some people would just say "I wrote about the time my and Dad went to the auction for the first time..." And some people would share parts of what they wrote and some people would share all of what they wrote.
So that's what I was shooting for. Sometimes in class folks were brought to tear while sharing what they wrote - but it was always good writing and you can do that in an open and encouraging atmosphere with no fear of judgment.
Read each subject below carefully – for this group, because we are special, it will never to wrong to write about horses. If the subjects don’t include them and one of them brings to mind something about horses or about your horse/s that you wish to write about – fire away. These are “jumping off points” Steve called them. Wait until one of them catches your eye or jogs a memory – and start to write. If one of the subjects reminds of you something complete different, follow your writing and write about that - jump. Just try to remember how you got there – you may want to share it with the group later.
Pick one and only one.
Spend 20 minutes writing – no proofing – no revising, keep your fingers off the delete key and away from your eraser - for the most part anyway, its nice to be able to understand what you’ve written. Set your timer when 20 minutes is up – its up, be done. If all you can think about is what to get at the grocery store then at a last resort write that down, just write something.
Jump Off Points:
1) Write about your morning routine – what do you do when you first wake up?
2) Write about a new horse moment – when/how you got your new horse.
3) Write about a place where you felt safe as a child.
Don’t think about it too much – keep your hand moving, if it’s still your thinking too much.
Ready – Set – Go!
In a weeks time we will talk about what we wrote.
______________________________________________________
UPDATE: It will work like this.
It will work like this - and I will post this to the blog as well, cause that's a good question.
Take 15-20 minutes to complete the exercise, really there should be a strict limit on that because I don't want this take up too much time in our already busy lives, and knowing how busy we all are I was thinking of doing one exercise every week, if that goes great and everyone is comfortable with that we may to like 1 every 3 days.
Once you've completed the exercise wait and I will do another post asking people to talk about what they wrote.
You can talk about what you wrote if you want - if you don't want to that okay too using the comment section of that post. If you want to share what you've written with the group you can either post it to the comment section or you can send it to me in email form at inclined2ride@yahoo.com - and I will post add to that post.
Some in class some people would just say "I wrote about the time my and Dad went to the auction for the first time..." And some people would share parts of what they wrote and some people would share all of what they wrote.
So that's what I was shooting for. Sometimes in class folks were brought to tear while sharing what they wrote - but it was always good writing and you can do that in an open and encouraging atmosphere with no fear of judgment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
