The Notebooking Daily 2020 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.
This may be pushing 45 unless you're really writing fast.
This may be pushing 45 unless you're really writing fast.
#43
Rhymebank Rounds-Rhyming Poem 2
Rhymbank Rounds are a new type of exercise. Kind of like the Wordbank sprints, but there will be more focus on editing and re-writing, and you'll complete a piece, with the main focus of the exercises being on Like Sounds. If you're typing I suggest copy/pasting the lines you're editing to save time, save the originals in their own exercise space.
- Take three minutes and jot down/type all rhymes and slant rhymes (include phrases for multi-syllabic words/feminine rhymes) you can think of just off the top of your head for the word: Slick. If you have trouble getting more than ten or so remember to rhyme with slit and picked. You want to have close to thirty (30) words even if they're only kind of rhyming.
- Pick four of those words you wrote down and underline/bold them. Write three sentences for each of those words which include at least two other words from the rhymebank you generated from #1. Try to use even more words without making the sentence awkward or too weird—a little weird can be good though.
- Fragment time! Write down ten (10) sentence fragments which end with words from your rhymebank—they should end in either a comma or a period. Try to work in additional 'like' sounds if you can. You don't need to know the rest of the sentence or the context so something like "a broken brown brick" or "which is his pick?".
- Fragment time 2! Write at least ten (10) 5-word partial sentences that use at least two (2) words from your list. Don't worry about context or what might be being said, just make sure you can make some logic of the phrasing.
- Short fragment time! Write five (5) three-word partial sentences which use two (2) words from your rhymebank back to back. No dawdling, but try to switch it up and use words you hadn't yet if you can. An example would be "a thick stick" or "he bit quick".
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Poem or story time!
- Rhymed Poem: Write a poem that is 12 lines in four tercets (3-lined stanzas) with the rhyme scheme ABA CBC ABC BBB with B being words from your rhymebank. Try to use fragments from the previous exercises and even the rhymebank itself to fill out your poem with as many 'like' sounds as you can within the lines. If you want more guidance, pick your favorite 3 fragments that ends in the rhymebank sound that can be an ending. Your favorite is what you will build your ending around. If it works as the end of a poem have that be the end and try to use one of your other fragments as one of the other B rhymes. Once you have your final stanza, pick one word that doesn't rhyme with B that has a good amount of rhymes, that will be your rhyme for A. Repeat step 1 and pick your favorite 3 for your A rhymes. Now write that first stanza, knowing you have the rhyme scheme, one fragment (end of line) and it's in the context of that it's the beginning of the poem leading to that final stanza you've already written. Start with something not directly in line, but that has something in common with the ending. Use the poem to go from that opening stanza to the final one. Don't try to do too much, write descriptively and only include at most one more 'thing' beyond the first and last stanza, you don't want to leave bits of the poem unexplored and you are only working with 12 lines here. If you're feeling especially motivated when you've written the final stanza feel free to either add 9 more lines (first 3 tercets repeated before the final one) or just straight double the rhyme scheme and lines so it is a 24 lined poem that ends with a second BBB stanza.
- Free form narrative: Pick your ten favorite fragments and find a way to fit those pieces together. What do I mean by fit them together? I mean that you're required to use ten of the fragments you'd written in a coherent piece by adding connective tissue and exposition/whatever needs to get you narratively from one line to the next. Whether you write this as a story or a poem is up to you.
- Title Mania: Write a piece that uses your favorite fragment as your title.
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If you'd like some background music, try this 1963 surf rock instrumental album "Surfin' Wild" by Jim Waller And The Deltas.
