This summer I want to try several activities just to experiment.
Writing things out, for me, helps in the future for future projects. I'll check out a few books from a library that have engaging activities and see what becomes of these experiments.
Why would I do such a potential messy activity?
Over time, stuff that is recorded has a way of becoming something else in the future.
However, if information isn't recorded then it can't become anything in the future.
The current book that I will use to try some exercises is Spellbinding Sentences by Barbara Baig.
This post is a freewriting practice from chapter 2, the exercise subtitled Be a Writer.
For that exercise, the author challenges the writer to sit down and type for 10 minutes without stopping in order "to write".
Freewriting is a prewriting technique used to produce raw material (content) in order to overcome potential writing blocks such as criticism or apathy. The technique may also be used to generate or create beginning ideas or initial thoughts.
I'm going to mix this exercise with picking a current event and trying to change the event into a fictional event.
A few days ago, the Toronto Raptors won the NBA Championship. In the game, Kevin Durant, one of the Golden State Warriors' main star, returned and was injured in the first half—a game where his team eventually lost.
Let me try turning parts of that idea into a fictional situation.
First, keeping his initials, I'll change Kevin Durant into Keith Duvall.
For a genre, I'll change the situation into a western gunfighter situation.
Keith Duvall is a heroic, an African American former Union soldier who fought in the US Civil War.
After the war, Keith settled and built a cattle ranch in the expanding Western Frontier.
Several outlaws had ravaged the area in recent days and made off with several head of cattle.
He awoke that night hearing his cattle restless and commotion out at his barn.
Grapping his rifle, he shouted to his ranch hands to get their guns.
Outside, in the half moonlight night, he saw the torches bright like a swarm of fireflies around the large barn.
"Go right," he whispered and hand motioned to his help.
Taking position behind a large oak tree, he began to fire his rifle at the nearest bandits.
The bandits shouted to each other and then bullets began flying at Keith.
He felt pain as one tore through his lower leg.
In the skirmish, Keith was injured with his posy against the bandits in a shoot out.
Unfortunately Keith was injured—shot in the calf—early during the volleys of bullets.
Upset and in agony, he watched as many of his cattle were taken away. One of his main ranch hands was also injured.
He could not protect his ranch despite his prior victories in war.
He swallowed hard—a painful sickness swam in the pit of his stomach.
In the future I'll try several more writing exercises, or whatever, during this summer.
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