Driver on the tube this morning (you could hear his teeth grating over the tannoy): "I'm sorry for the delay to your journey, ladies and gentlemen. This is due to the young lady wedging the doors open with her rucksack." For the benefit of the lynch mob.

Quiet room

                Found this exercise in Screenwriting from theheart by James Ryan. It’s to let you discover what you want to write about.

                “Sit in a chair in a quiet room. When you are totally relaxed open your eyes and look around the room until you find something you have never noticed before. What does the object evoke or suggest to you? What feelings, thoughts and images?...Write whatever comes into your mind about it. Do not take your pen off the paper until you are experiencing a breakthrough, which could easily take thirty minutes or more.”

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Seed Stories

                Came across another interesting writing exercise, from a book called Writing in the House of Dreams by JennyAlexander. It is about what creating what she calls Seed Stories, that is, memories which can provide material for future writing. She says:

                …three random incidents you can remember from your childhood can contain the seeds of all your stories in later life.

                They have to be private memories, things which no one has ever talked about, so you can be certain they are authentically yours. They can’t be the sort of anecdotes people in the family remember and share, because those have a kind of group ownership.

You write about each seed story for no longer than ten minutes.

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