These are all the posts that didn’t quite fit anywhere!
Let’s assume I’m this world-renowned author, with aspiring writers from around the world flocking to me for advice. I have this wild, white beard from years of paying attention to other people, a colorful yet tasteful garb over my head to prevent ideas from spilling out, and a voice as […]
Have you ever wondered what makes a great piece of literature? Theorist Viktor Shlovsky believed that what a good story was was this, one that sticks around, plays with us, remains. However, to achieve that “long-lasting effect” in a work of art takes a specific set of devices. Like poetic […]
Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for visiting this page. Some of you will notice there has been some inactivity as a result of one’s being inactive inactively for a minute here on this blog, yup me, allowing the days to produce only a lack of content, let’s just say. […]
∀ “El Cid” Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar Nada, solamente un conjunto de nuevas palabras, un acervo de curiosidades, un acuerdo entre poetas, el ágape de anónimos, un afaníptero agobiado, y a esto vamos: ¿quien podrá componer un poema, un poema con estas palabritas? Acervo – (un conjunto de […]
∀ (Imagine: Bueyes del sol) Quiero compartir esta próxima fase de mi aprendizaje con usted: una serie de ejercicios sobre la etimología castellana. Viene, en gran parte, o mejor dicho por una parte, a través de un libro llamado Breve Diccionario Etimológico de la Lengua Castellana, compuesta por Joan […]
(Art by Cosimo Miorelli, for Bloomsday 2015) Ok, so, this is the third and final Charles Johnson exercise (I must confess, the last three exercises have all been from page 37 of The Way of the Writer, which I finished yesterday). (3) Write a monologue of at least […]
(Art by Dana Cooper) Today’s exercise again comes from Charles Johnson‘s book, The Way of the Writer, where he credits much of his early development to his late mentor John Gardner: Describe a character in a brief passage (one or two pages) using mostly long vowels and soft consonants […]
Today’s writing exercise comes from Charles Johnson, a National Book Award winner, and author of the novel Middle Passage, the short story collection The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and the graphic novel Shall I Rise–just to name a few publications from his almost fifty years of writing and scholarship. He was the […]
There are as many methods of producing great literature as there are pens. Nevertheless, one way of sabotaging our output as writers is to criticize before we’ve concluded our daily production of words. When you are writing, write. When you are editing, edit. Both are as essential to great work […]
When pressed to describe a person, most admit to noticing the “eyes,” the “hair,” a “smile.” This works in conversation, but in writing, where readers thirst for deeper introspections, a new charter will need more than: “Big blue eyes,” “long, red hair,” with “a smile that stretched from ear to […]
Writer of many home-study courses for Time-Life Educational systems, Ron Bradley, was the English learning trainer who helped certify me to teach others. He has this to say about reflection: “[Use] reflective practice to improve your teaching and professional growth: ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll […]
Today’s exercise comes from a Writer’s Digest article by Brian Klems, where he gives 12-days of writing exercises. This is day-6’s exercise: “Select a book on your shelf and pick two chapters at random. Take the first line of one chapter and the last line of the other chapter and […]
Writers, does writing come easy, or is it hard? Either way, I’m sure you’d prefer it to come naturally. … Today’s writing exercise comes from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, a book with 12-weeks of exercises to get yourself unblocked, and write (/be creative) naturally. She calls the exercise “Forbidden […]
Click here for PDF –_Practice Perspective This semester I enrolled in Susan Bell’s Fiction Workshop. It runs like most MFA workshops–write material, present it to a classroom of peers, and then a week later listen to their comments/critiques. Bell’s class however, unlike other workshops, has two twists: the first […]
(“rare” “literally” “literary”) Little rare gems, gladly listening to lore, glisten literally to scripture, wiping Friar Lawrence clean of literary literature.
Click here for a PDF — A Short Story in Five Tenses As an exercise for my wonderful English students at New York Language Center, I asked them to write the final page, all sentences in future tense. It takes a lot of concentration to not run through prose. […]
Our Writing & Publishing Lab course, lead by Luis Jaramillo and John Reed at The New School, began with one simple exercise: “Write a story in five snapshots.” To do this, we followed what’s called the “Five-part story structure”: (A) First you write Action. (B) Second you write Background. (D) […]
Click here for a link to my transcription and translation: VIVIR by DJ AFRO (feat Carlos Fraga) Searching the dollar bin at Cactus Records in Houston, I found this gem by Venezuelan DJ Afro, founder of renowned acid-jazz-funk group Los Amigos Invisibles. Listening to the first nine tracks is akin […]
For the polyglots and language lovers, enjoy: “40 Brilliant Idioms” by Helene Batt and Kate Torgovnick May (from TED Blog > Language) My favorite from the list: From Russian translator Aliaksandr Autayeu: The idiom: Галопом по Европам Literal translation: “Galloping across Europe.” What it means: “To do something hastily, […]
Para los quien quieren leer mejor en voz alta, aquí tienen una herramienta para afilar sus ondas físicas. “Herramientas para leer mejor en voz alta” by Lourdes Morán (from IMAGINAlee) Varios de los principios presentados los he empleado en mis clases de inglés, como las de practicar trabalenguas. Uno […]