I tried many exercises in the various writing groups in which I participated before entering graduate school, and working towards earning my MFA. None left an impression, or stuck with me.
This is not to say the exercises held no merit.
Instead my focus lay severely on learning to write, as in craft a decent scene filled with round and interesting characters.
Now having earned my MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College, and having had a collection of short stories, Keeper of Secrets…Translations of an Incident, published in 2007 (Three Muses Press) I feel a little more confident in my writing.
Reaching this point, I have relaxed as much as possible for any novice writer perpetually working and seeking ways to hone her craft. The world holds a fair number of good and successful writers to keep us all toiling on our toes for perfection.
And so it is in this constant quagmire that I have surprisingly found a useful place for writing exercises—towards the purpose of helping me to loosen up and trust my process in writing.
The writer’s mind holds fertile soil for the critical aspect of editing. Often, when we have gained a sense of what constitutes good writing, how it presents and reads our body tenses when we set out to write. Our cerebral muscles tighten, and we focus a bit too hard on achieving perfection.
The goal at this point is to find a way to return to the child-like ignorance we possessed prior to studying the craft of fiction at great depth.
Writing exercises prove especially useful in assisting with taming the internal editor by engaging the editor’s mind on achieving the rules, or request of the exercise, and thus diverting the internal critical away from attacking the creative process.
In many ways this is the ultimate challenge every writer faces after prolonged study of the craft. How to maintain balance between the creative self and the internal editor as we write.
As many suggestions on this matter propound as those who have proffered them. Yet simply writing exercises offer a most pragmatic way of addressing this issue that has long plagued writers of all time periods and genres.
If you find yourself stuck and unable to mount a momentum of energy towards writing a new story or novel, try an exercise or writing prompt, and see what happens.
How powerful is your critical mind?
In what part of the writing process do you wage the greatest battle(s) with your internal editor?