Daily Writing Exercises

For quite some time, I’ve been keeping a catch all writing journal. Every random thought, story idea, plot question or device or snatch of dialogue or description that has ever been written down has most likely been written first in that journal.

In 2008, I created and began keeping a Scene Journal, where I write rough drafts of scenes. Most of them are unattached to stories, but were worthy of being recorded. Some of them are attached to stories, but are alternative ideas for current events. Sort of ‘what if I were to do this instead of that?’ ideas.

During a recent trip to Michigan to visit family, I decided to take this journaling one step further in 2009 and begin doing a daily writing exercise. It actually began on December 27,2008 and was prompted by a box that my Mom received from a cousin. What began as a similar event in an as yet unknown character’s life ended with over 1,700 words written and encompassed the original scene and a follow up scene.

That got me to thinking.

Artists sketch and draw on a daily basis for pleasure and practice. Objects or subjects chosen for no other reason but that they were interesting to the artist on that particular day.

In 2007, I did a similar project in which I painted one art trading card sized landscape every day but Sunday for the entire year.

Why not try something like that with writing?

For 2009, I am going to set myself the goal of writing every day on something, whether I’m working on a story or am between stories. The guidelines are going to be simple.

• 700 words (approximately two college ruled pages) per day every day but Sunday
• Any subject, event or character as long as it’s prose or dialogue. No plotting notes or editing questions allowed!
• The subject does not need to be related to an existing story, but may be.

I don’t remember ever setting a goal like this for writing, before. Unless some idea strikes and I have to write it down (as described above), writing has generally been targetted toward specific stories or ideas. So this will be a challenge and, hopefully, a lot of fun and a learning experience.

I will post updates on how it is going as time passes. A separate page has been set up to monitor progress and talk about some of the results of the daily exercises.

Thanks for reading and best wishes!