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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Writing Prompt: Nobody Is Perfect

By Candace Chatman and Marilyn Friedman

How did it get to be March already? Don't let Spring pass you by without partaking of our wonderful class offerings. We have everything you need to rouse your muse from her wintery slumber place and help you launch your writing career. Sign up before the classes are full!

CLASSES STARTING THIS WEEK/NEXT WEEK
•So You Want To Be A Writer
•Finishing School
•The Found Story: Finding Your Story In The Street
•You in 1200 Words: Writing and Publishing The Personal Essay
•Structure, Structure, Structure: Building The Foundation For A Killer Book
•The Road Best Traveled: Designing Your Hero's Journey

CLASSES BY GENRE
Book Publishing
•Get Your Book Published

Children's Writing and YA
•From Bedtime Stories To Tales of Teenage Woe: Writing For Kids and YA Pt I
•From Bedtime Stories To Tales of Teenage Woe: Writing For Kids and YA Pt Advanced
•Structure, Structure, Structure: Building The Foundation For A Killer Book

Creative Writing/Multi Genre
•So You Want To Be A Writer
•Finishing School
•The Found Story: Finding Your Story In The Street
•Structure, Structure, Structure: Building The Foundation For A Killer Book

Fiction, Memoir, Romance
•The Found Story: Finding Your Story In The Street
•Structure, Structure, Structure: Building The Foundation For A Killer Book
•The Road Best Traveled: Designing Your Hero's Journey
•True Tales: Writing A Compelling Past

Journalism, Personal Essay and Web Writing
•You in 1200 Words: Writing and Publishing The Personal Essay
•Pitching For The Press: A Query Letter Clinic
•What's On Your Mind? Building Your Brand Through Social Media
•Hello World, Welcome To My Blog
•Me.Com: A Copywriting Ninja Skills Workshop
•Advanced Personal Essay First Aid

Playwriting and Writing For Actors
•It's All About You: A One-Person Show Workshop (2-Night Intensive)
•It's All About You: A One-Person Show Workshop Pt II (2-Night Intensive)

Screenwriting
•Black Hats/White Hats: Mastering The Studio Canon
•Trouble and Rapture: Crafting The Studio Romantic Comedy
•Made To Order: Writing A Killer TV Spec Script




Writing Prompt:  Đ¢his week's writing prompt is complements of the lovely and talented Candace Chatman who was our Mountain Retreat manager! Candace says, "1. Pick a person in your life who is a colorful character or a character from your book or screenplay.  2. Make list of three flaws or emotional challenges that he or she has. 3. Pick one. 4. Write a sentence regarding how the flaw could cause a bad event. 5. Spend 10 minutes writing a scene of this bad event, making sure to show the character flaw. Be sure to include one sensory detail (sound, smell, taste, touch). For example, a major flaw of mine is that I am constantly late to things.  I'm going to write a scene in which my tardiness makes me miss the boarding of a cruise ship back home." 

Write about a character flaw and how it causes something bad to happen.  Post your 10 minute write in the comments of this blog, and you could win a free class!
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am obsessive. My husband says I have “attention surfeit disorder, “ and believe me, I do.
I will write about one very embarrassing, secret obsession that I have shared with exactly one
person in the world who happens to live in Wyoming, and she's been sworn to secrecy. I have been so secretive about this that I do not do the following:

1. I do not write about it in my journal.
2. I have told no one about it but this one person who does not live in the same state as me.
3. I rarely write about it in email to the friend in Wyoming, except for today, but we have a kind of code that we use to talk about it, and I used that code. Actually, I've been making a concerted effort not to write about it at all. You can see I'm writing about it in this blog, but not really, because I have yet to actually say what it is.

And here's the sad thing: it is very mundane and it is something that frequently afflicts all who are human, and I know this. I know it is nothing to be ashamed of. I know I have actually *done nothing* deserving of the kind of shame I am expressing by being super-secretive about it.

Here's my confession: I keep hoping that, by pretending it doesn't exist, it will actually go away.

That doesn't work. It hasn't gone away. In fact, I saw it walking down the hallway just today and it appeared to be checking its messages. It had actually disappeared for about three weeks, and I was thinking about it less and less, and starting to believe that I had actually succeeded in making it go away, then suddenly, there it was, passing me on my coffee walk.

Well, of course it's a person! What were you expecting? A werewolf? A stolen diamond ring? A banana split? Counterfeit money? What? What are all of us normally in denial about all the time and yet simultaneously plagued by in this culture? What is used to sell everything from cars to cigarettes to the latest diet? I don't think we've had any wars over it lately, but the culture wars are still being fought over it. Not my it, sorry, I mean the “it” that my it brings to the surface for me—that “it” that my it makes me think of whenever I see my it.

Oh this is dreadful.

So I had this dream, okay, that he got a haircut. (Yes I am switching pronouns because explaining which it is which is just too much.) I dreamed that he had something that was a cross between a mohawk and one of those awful haircuts with tails that were popular in the South in the eighties whose name escapes me, but you know what I mean because they were truly awful. Now, he is probably in his forties or fifties, and most likely his fifties—in real life as well as in the dream—and this awful haircut brought out the fact that his hair looks pretty grey. So in the dream, I was happy, because I thought, “Wow, he looks pretty bad now. He is really not all that now. That's fabulous, because it means I will stop thinking about him.” It was a terrific dream, because, in the dream, that bad haircut would cure me of my obsession. My obsession would simply dissipate due to that 'do.

When I passed him today, I noticed that he had, indeed, gotten a haircut, and it was not an improvement. However, it was no really awful mohawk mixture with tails, so, well, actually, it wasn't bad. Probably in two weeks he'll look just as he did before. Damn. I had put so much faith in that bad hair cut, in letting go, in the hope of escaping obsession. But no, there he is, looking, well, not bad-not bad enough. And there I am, trying very very very very hard not to notice, and not succeeding.

March 13, 2012 at 10:19 PM

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