Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

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Two really, really, really long sentences

In Writing on April 13, 2012 at 4:23 pm

Sometimes in writing it’s important to challenge yourself to stretch your abilities, even if what you come up with, at the end of the exercise, is a horrible, steaming pile of mangled syntax and mixed up metaphors. Nobody actually needs to be able to bench press 700 pounds (except for those women who save their children from, you know, crashing spaceships and such with incredible feats of superhuman strength) but athletes still do it because it helps them condition themselves in general.

That’s where today’s exercise comes in: writing really, really, absurdly long sentences.

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Get off your D.U.F.F. and write

In Writing on April 11, 2012 at 2:28 pm

There I was, sitting in my off-campus house, when I noticed  — for the 324th time since becoming a Davidson College student — the arrival of a friendly email from the editor of the student magazine, Libertas. I gave the email a quick scan, having learned what to expect by then (a general plea for article ideas, writers, or just warm bodies to fill out the editorial meeting), and then moved to do what I always did when receiving a Libertas email: delete it before I felt guilty. I was a senior, and had been on the Libertas mailing list since the freshman year activity fair, and yet I’d never even shown up to a meeting, much less actually contributed a piece. But I wasn’t quick enough this time, and before I could delete the damn thing, one of the editor’s postscripts gave me pause (yes, pause):

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Short Story Contests: May (2012)

In Writing on April 10, 2012 at 3:40 pm

A great way to keep yourself writing, get some feedback and (we can dream, right?) earn publication and cash rewards is to enter contests. So for quick reference I’ve collected a few short story contests in one place with deadlines coming up next month.

Check them out — click the links for full submission guidelines — and good luck!

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Books about books: Required reading for writers

In Writing on April 9, 2012 at 3:06 pm

Every serious writer — even if they plan on breaking every rule it contains — should have a copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, but what else should be sitting on your shelf next to the dictionary, thesaurus, rhyming dictionary and … rhyming thesaurus? Read the rest of this entry »

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Transmogrified: ‘My Humps’

In Fiction, Writing on April 6, 2012 at 2:26 pm

Let’s start with a definition (for readers of yesterday’s post, not usually the best way to start):

Transmogrify
verb (transitive)
 To change in appearance or form, especially strangely or grotesquely; transform

For writing students (or maybe only to students of a certain Professor Randy Nelson at Davidson College) a transmogrification is also a writing exercise where you take a piece of writing, maybe a poem or a newspaper clipping or some song lyrics, and rewrite it in a completely different and unexpected form.

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Starting from the beginning

In Writing on April 5, 2012 at 2:15 pm

Two weeks from today I’ll be reading the first chapter of my novel, Alberija, at an event at the Brookline Public Library (event details here). In trying to decide what to read from the book, and ultimately deciding to start from the beginning, I got thinking about some of my favorite opening lines and what makes them so good. Read the rest of this entry »