We’re into week 2, Patchworkers!<\/p>\n
After our lovely session on Sunday, I am wishing I could find a way to make a full-time career out of writing, because office work just isn\u2019t as exciting. (I say this with the knowledge of how privileged I am to have a steady job at a company where I can be out and where my disability is accommodated by allowing me to work some of my hours from home \u2013 I don\u2019t mean to be ungrateful, and I know not everyone has this stability!)<\/p>\n
Sunday’s Patchwork session really was fantastic. We started with a check-in, and it turned out that everyone (including me) had liked the Friday prompt but none of us had written on it. So our first prompt was 15 minutes spent writing \u201cthe sky.\u201d Some of the writing produced was fantastic, and you can read one of the pieces later in this post.<\/p>\n
Our second prompt was from Ursula K. Le Guin\u2019s book Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew. Le Guin writes, \u201cThe sound of language is where it all begins and what it all comes back to. The basic elements of language are physical: the noise words make and the rhythm of their relationships. This is just as true of written prose as it is of poetry, though the sound-effects of prose are usually subtle and always irregular.\u201d<\/p>\n
We wrote for 15 minutes on Le Guin\u2019s prompt, Being Gorgeous. \u201cWrite narrative that\u2019s meant to be read aloud. Use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects, made-up words or names, dialect \u2013 any kind of sound-effect you like \u2013 but NOT rhyme or meter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Le Guin suggests that this is a very repeatable prompt and can be used as a warm-up when you\u2019re having trouble getting into your writing. Put it into your writer\u2019s toolbox, and take it out as often as needed!<\/p>\n
Our third prompt was taken from The Pocket Scavenger. We sent our characters out to find \u201csomething with text on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scavenging, hunting, searching or questing \u2013 these are all the kinds of actions, each with its own particular flavour and subtext, that can move your story forward or give your character motivation. It can be as simple as looking for a pen, as epic as questing for the Holy Grail, or as esoteric as a search for knowledge, as long as your character is looking for something, they\u2019ve got a reason to move forward and you\u2019ve got more to work with. If you feel stuck in your story or you want to write a quick character sketch and need some motivation, consider playing fetch with your character.<\/p>\n
We also talked about the difference between science fiction and fantasy when it comes to world-building, and the difficulty of writing speculative or fantastic fiction versus our enjoyment of reading it. I\u2019ll do some more digging for us in this area \u2013 I\u2019m well-versed in how to write creative non-fiction, realist fiction, and erotica but I\u2019m learning along with the group when it comes to science fiction and fantasy.<\/p>\n
Next week we will be reading a Maureen Birnbaum: Barbarian Swordsperson adventure, and writing our own pieces using Muffy\u2019s adventures as a template. You\u2019ll need to bring your favourite fictional setting \u2013 it could be from a science fiction novel, a fantasy novel, a mystery, a children\u2019s book, it doesn\u2019t matter what it is but you\u2019ll need to have a good idea of how that world works and it needs to not be a world of your own creation. Then we\u2019ll drop your character in, and see what happens!<\/p>\n
And here, generously shared by one of our anonymous Patchwork participants, a beautiful response to “the sky.”<\/p>\n
Peanut Sky<\/p>\n
The sky looks like a peanut butter cookie \u2013 brown, cracked, unmarred by anything save its own surface. Not a universal favourite, this sky. Has been known to send some to the hospital.<\/p>\n
It is not an all-natural sky, hugging closer to the planet than most like to imagine, clouds of brown and beige writhing into each other and amongst themselves \u2013 you can see them doing it, the part that most newcomers and second-gens find unnerving. In some places, writhing clouds mean an oncoming storm. Here, it\u2019s Tuesday. Walk to work with a soft rumbling above you, your hand clutches your briefcase and you mull idly through your to-do list as, above you, the humped peanut hellscape strains against thin and fleeting physical bonds with a dream of annihilating you.<\/p>\n
Poisonous suffocation, most often. Some settlements unlucky enough to get rain. Check your watch. I don\u2019t understand these people.<\/p>\n
A shuttle is perfectly capable of descending safely through the sky, with certain precautions in place. That\u2019s how I arrived. The pricey facility of safe arrival has not drawn in a strong tourism economy, to say nothing of rmore than the barest in the planetary affirmation of political visitors. At the end of the tenth and final month of the year of my arrival, I was the fifth of five total annual visitors, and the sky roiled around me and pressed against the windows and swallowed me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We’re into week 2, Patchworkers!<\/p>\n
After our lovely session on Sunday, I am wishing I could find a way to make a full-time career out of writing, because office work just isn\u2019t as exciting. (I say this with the knowledge of how privileged I am to have a steady job at a company where I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-patchwork"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinginthemargins.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinginthemargins.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinginthemargins.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinginthemargins.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinginthemargins.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/writinginthemargins.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinginthemargins.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinginthemargins.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinginthemargins.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}