Hi everyone,

Thanks for another great week in the studio! In case you missed the Wednesday morning session, we did a writing exercise around developing detail and description. Everyone started with the same bare bones story and each chose a sentence to “explode” with detailed description. The most exciting thing about this was how everyone elaborated a line from the same story in completely different ways. I think this illustrates how important detailed description is to articulating your voice and persona, not to mention engaging the reader. It was so much fun hearing everyone’s variations.

The other thing I think this showed us is how much writing we can get done with heads down for 25 minutes. This “shut up and write” model is based on something called The Pomodoro Technique. If you tend to get stuck a lot, or are prone to a little procrastination (or a lot of procrastibaking), this technique can be very powerful (trust me). There’s a bunch of cute pomodoro apps to help you replicate this scenario at home, or you can use less cute, but still effective, online timers like this. You can read about why it’s named after a tomato, but it basically gets your brain working because you are committing to a short period of intense focus instead of an exhausting, no-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel situation.

A couple of extra things relating to Week 5:

• If you missed, or want more of, the “exploding a moment” exercise, try using a line from a detail-less synopsis of a film you know well. Mine wikipedia or imdb.com for an example and “explode” the line with as much detail as possible. You might want to watch the relevant section of the plot again to refresh your memory.
• We also talked in class on Wednesday about “listening to your broccoli” (your imagination and intuition) and “radio station KFKD” (the negative chatter inside your head when you try to write). These ideas are from Anne Lamott’s 1994 book on writing, Bird by Bird. I have scanned these short sections for you and put them into the shared drive. They’re great for short-circuiting gloomy feelings and rallying the troops.

Looking ahead to Week 6:

Monday 12:30pm – 3:30pm:

We’re going to look at the rise of the curator and how it might relate to the role of the critic. We’re also going to spend some time looking ahead at what we need to achieve in the second half of the semester.

To prepare for class, you will need to:

1. Spend a few minutes exploring what the word curator means/has meant. Bring these ideas to class. You may also want to have a look at these articles on the rise of the curator here and here before we go over them in class.
2. Check out the details of PB3, which have been posted on the Assessments page.

Wednesday 8:30am – 10:30am: 

Our early-morning session will be dedicated to writing exercises and “group therapy” for overcoming the Grammar Shame we talked about this week.

To prepare for class, you will need to:

1. Have a think about which aspects of writing you feel most uncomfortable with. We’re going to make a list and see if we can, over the rest of the semester, unravel as many obstacles as possible.

Stay warm, watch movies and have a great weekend!