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.
Erasing Roger Ebert 12 "El Dorado"
For poetry do an erasure or black-out poem from the following: Roger Ebert's review of the 1967 Western "El Dorado" (3.5 star) starring John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.
Roger Ebert has been the stereotypical film critic for decades, and he's written thousands of reviews. Because of their nature, almost their own bit of ekphrastic art, this series of erasures will be lots of fun!
An Erasure/Blackout is really simple: you take the given text and remove many words to make it your own new piece. One way to go about the erasure that I like to do is to copy the text and paste it twice into your document before you start erasing or blacking out (in MS Word set the text background color to black), that way if you get further into the erasure and decide you want a somewhat different tone or direction, it's easy to go to the unaltered version and make the erasure/black-out piece smoother. Another tip is to look for recurring words, in this example 'bingo' occurs multiple times and could be a good touchstone for your piece.
If you insist on fiction (or just feel like writing a "Title Mania" piece), write a piece with one of these six titles taken from this section:
- A Professional Gunman
- In the Saddle Once Again
- Drunk and Disheveled
- A Touch of Paralysis
- Symbolic Scene
- With all of his Shadows and Kerosene Lamps and Murky Atmosphere and Dark Alleys
Erasure Selection:
Roger Ebert's review of "El Dorado"
"El Dorado" is a tightly directed, humorous, altogether successful Western, turned out almost effortlessly, it would seem, by three old pros: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and director Howard Hawks. You could call it, of course a "John Wayne Western." I guess that means it has the Duke in the saddle once again, drawl and all, making his laconic comments on the state of the universe and marching through old Western cliches. But "El Dorado" is more than that. It is a very good John Wayne Western.
It is long, but it is quickly paced. Howard Hawks is too good a director to depend upon stereotyped violence to keep the interest of the audience, and his well-made scenes between Wayne, Mitchum, Arthur Hunicutt and James Cann never lag for a moment.
Wayne plays a professional gunman who comes to town to take a job from a rich rancher who wants a poor rancher's water (who says the plot has to be original?). But the sheriff turns out to be his old buddy, Mitchum, and so he turns down the job. Then the rich rancher hires another gunman (Christopher George), and Wayne sides up with the drunk and disheveled Mitchum.
Duke's team isn't exactly made of heroes. Mitchum has been hitting the bottle for two months, his deputy (played with charm by Hunnicutt) is a windy old Indian fighter, Wayne has a bullet near his spine that causes a slight touch of paralysis now and again, and his sidekick (Caan) is a kid who carries a shotgun instead of a pistol because he's such a lousy shot.
Hawks fashions scene after scene of quiet, earthy humor from this situation. Without great care, the movie could have degenrated into a put-on, but Hawks plays it straight and never allows his actors to take that last fatal step in overacting. For fans of the Western, there's a light-hearted but symbolic scene where Wayne tries to teach the kid the tricks of the cowboy trade. For students of the cinema, Hawks ribs François Truffaut in a scene where Mitchum shoots, not the player, but the piano. For people who like well-made, entertaining movies with suspense, violence, horses, colorful characters, lots of shooting and a few pretty girls, "El Dorado" is about the most entertaining Western to turn up this year.
A footnote: Pauline Kael, the New Republic's film critic, claims "El Dorado" has the second worst lighting she's seen in a movie. That's not bad lighting, that's good old Howard Hawks with all of his shadows and kerosene lamps and murky atmosphere and dark alleys (remember "The Big Sleep" (1946)?). Miss Kael needs her glasses scrubbed.
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If you'd like some background music to write to, try this "Sad Wizard Vibes" lofi playlist.
