9/26/19

Fall Writing Exercise Series #26: 3x5x10+ Wordbank 04


The Notebooking Daily Fall Writing Series is a daily writing exercises for both prose writers and poets to keep your creative mind stretched and ready to go—fresh for your other writing endeavors. The writing prompts take the impetus—that initial crystal of creation—out of your hands (for the most part) and changes your writing creation into creative problem solving. Instead of being preoccupied with the question "What do I write" you are instead pondering "How do I make this work?" And in the process you are producing new writing.

These exercises are not meant to be a standard writing session. They are meant to be productive and to keep your brain thinking about using language to solve simple or complex problems. The worst thing you can do is sit there inactive. It's like taking a 5 minute breather in the middle of a spin class—the point is to push, to produce something, however imperfect. If you don't overthink them, you will be able to complete all of the exercises in under 30 minutes.

#26
3x5x10+ Wordbank 04
For today's writing exercise complete the following steps.

1) Pick one word from each of three groups and write a sentence that includes all of the words, feel free to change tense, pluralize, gerund etc. 
2) Repeat the process ten (10) times using different combinations. No dawdling!
3) Now write five (5) sentences that are five words or fewer in length that use any two (2) words.
4) Now write three (3) sentences that use four or more of the words.
5) Now write a piece of fiction or poetry that uses at least three (3) of those sentences. Try to use as many of the sentences as you can, or parts of the sentences if the whole thing doesn't fit or works better altered.


Word Bank 1:
  • Trophy
  • Zip
  • Clutch
  • Shatter
  • Plaque
Wordbank 2:
  • Bassoon
  • Golden
  • Steel
  • Grip
  • Pitchfork
Wordbank 3:
  • Ferret
  • Quarry
  • Tyrant
  • Torch
  • Reap

Bonus writing exercise: Include three different locations in your piece, beginning with the ruins of a castle or barn.
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Want some different background writing music? Try Jan Jelinek's "Loop-Finding Jazz Records".