Today’s writing exercise. The first of two actually.
Still over it. Click the Gaudeamus cat after the read, or now if you aren’t interested in it.
The exercise ->
CAPTURE YOUR MAIN CHARACTER’S VOICE:
Simply detail the drama and world of your story from your main character’s perspective using their words. e.g. if your MC is a child, use childlike expressions. If your MC is from the country, capture their colloquial expressions.
Now, come up with a character, give them a name, an occupation, a relationship status and an age. Close your eyes, take three to five breaths.
Imagine your character has just woken up. They open their eyes and see a person they fear most standing over them.
Get in touch with the emotion your character is experiencing, feel it in every cell of your body. Allow an image to form in your imagination. Breathe it in. Listen for the sounds. Feel the physical sensations. See it clearly in your mind’s eye.
Write by hand, for six to eight minutes describing what happens after the character wakes up. Let the scene unfold by keeping the pen moving, capturing first thoughts and letting yourself write junk.
We highly recommend you listen to Kathleen taking you through a guided short meditation – Writing a Scene Podcast – to focus your imagination and help you “see and feel” the scene.
My effort.
Week Two – Fear
Thu Mar 19th 2015 at 02:50pm
The World Turned Upside Down 
If it hadn’t been for my body at my feet, it would never in a lifetime occurred to me that I would find myself seated before, well, ‘her’?
On opening my eyes to the darkness, her loose blue rinse perm and the pink old lady dressing gown she wore gently glowed.
Had I a pulse, it would have raced, the sound of it thumping in my ears. Sweat would have coated me head to toe, and I am sure I would have had at least one wet sock. The chill that should have run up my spine would have matched the goose bumps on my arms. My mouth would have been dry, and I would have shaken like the cliché leaf.
But, I did not.
I am dead.
Death is staring at me, my body is a tangle at my feet, and blood, so much blood, is everywhere. Sitting in darkness all is consumed, nay, enveloped by it, and yet I can see clearly through it.
When Death spoke, her voice was not one of the crypt nor the grave, it was, however, that of an irritated old lady, a veritable prune of a woman, and she was telling me to “keep bloody still boy!” and then “if you think I’m scary, you won’t believe your eyes when you get to the hot place.”
With one deft swoop of her secateur filled right hand, (I had always thought Death carried a long handled scythe, but it is apparently too phallic for a woman of her age?) she sliced through my necrobilical cord, severing soul from mortal remains.
Five feet two inches of gnarled old lady turned on its heel without another word; her back facing me as she stepped into a clapped out, beige, 1960 something VW beetle.
With a pop she was gone, and then all at once, everything became very, very hot.
Fin
9 minutes, 2 seconds
Click the picture above.
Hamish