Your Surroundings Hold Secrets – Week 9

October 18, 2018October 29, 2018 F.A. HuffmanLeave a comment

You’ve made it to the very last exercise. Congratulations for sticking with me. I hope you have enjoyed these nine lessons as much as I have shared them with you. You’ve answered questions, told stories, and gone deep into important life-changing moments.

This week we are going to have some fun.

You are going to describe your surroundings.

All you have to do is write a paragraph or two about what is around you. You can choose to write this in the first person (I am sitting at the kitchen table…) Or you can write in the third person (The room is bright with the sunlight blinding through the window.)

Make this challenging by using descriptive language to really set your scene. Don’t just say something as simple as, “The room was dark.” Try to make it more interesting, “The sun barely cracked through the closed shades giving the darkened room an ominous glow.”

No matter if you enjoy writing fiction or non-fiction, you want to make sure that you can write in an intriguing way that will invite the reader into your scene so that they can see what is going on.

That is it for your last lesson. You have made it through all of the lessons, and I hope you have learned a lot from them.

If you would share your favorite lesson in the comment section, I would greatly appreciate it.

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. – E.L. Doctorow

Great Stories Are in Your Soul – Week 8

October 11, 2018October 29, 2018 F.A. HuffmanLeave a comment

You have made it all the way to the eighth lesson in my creative writing lessons series. We’re almost to the finish line. Only one week left.

This week you are going to have to dig deep for your exercise. You are going to have to really look at the things that have happened in your life and the effect that they had on you.

This week you are going to write about somebody or something that changed your life.

You aren’t pretending to be somebody else, and you aren’t going to be recounting the story somebody else has told you. You are telling your own story. From your perspective, write about an event or person that impacted your life in a profound way.

I don’t want you to just recount what happened, either. I want you to talk about how you felt, your reactions, and how things changed for you on the inside and outside. I really want you to pour your heart and soul into this exercise. This doesn’t have to be shown to anybody so you can be as vulnerable as you want.

That’s it for the eighth exercise. Make sure you come back next week to catch the last exercise.

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. -Anton Chekhov

Once Upon a Time – Week 6

September 27, 2018October 29, 2018 F.A. HuffmanLeave a comment

Welcome back to my creative writing lessons. This is the sixth lesson, which means we are creeping closer to the end. Only three more lessons are left.

I hope you have enjoyed the previous five. Enough of the pleasantries. Let’s dive right into your next lesson.

This week you will write down a story that you have been told.

You will recount any story that anybody has ever told you. This could be a story that a parent or a grandparent has told that happen years ago, or it could be something recent that a friend a family member has told you.

This could also be a story that you told while in school or from a book that you have read about something that has happened in the past. This could be an educational, fun, or sad story. The important thing is that it is entertaining and engaging.

The main thing that all readers love is stories. They like to relate to the lives and experiences of other people. When you add stories to your writings you will humanize you writing and take your readers along on a journey.

That’s it for this week. Stay tuned for lesson seven.

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write. – Saul Bellow

Get Creatively Conscious – Week 5

September 20, 2018October 29, 2018 F.A. HuffmanLeave a comment

Welcome to week five of my creative writing lessons. There are only four more lessons left, and I hope you have enjoyed the past four. You are right smack dab in the middle of them now.

This week your not going to write based on a prompt or anything specific like questions.

Your job this week is to write down a stream of your own consciousness.

This is a relaxed, fun, and easy exercise. For this exercise, you should write everything longhand instead of typing it out on your computer. Handwriting will slow down the writing which will give your brain more creative time.

Grab yourself a pen and paper and simply write down what comes to mind. Jot down everything that pops into your mind. It can be nonsensical and jumbled. Julia Cameron, an author, has a book where she talks about writing three pages of consciousness every morning. This doesn’t even feel like writing because it’s not. It just gets a bunch of ideas out that you might feel like using later.

That’s it for day five. Remember to come back next week for the sixth lesson.

Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it. – Lloyd Alexander

Get Creative with What You Can Do – Week 4

September 13, 2018October 10, 2018 F.A. HuffmanLeave a comment

You have made it to day four of my nine creative writing lessons. If you have made it through the previous three and have come back to a fourth, thank you. You’ve answered questions, wrote to yourself, and written a story based on a prompt.

This week you will write about your expertise.

Sit down and think for a moment about something that you are able to do really well. This could be something as simple as washing dishes, or something as complicated as selling stocks. Now, write out a few paragraphs, or as many as you want, detailing some important aspect of your expertise. Make sure that you assume your reader knows nothing about this task.

You don’t want you writing to sound like a dry explanation of something. Try to write you explanations in a creative way, as if you were verbally explaining the process. Break down each step so that your reader can understand what to do, without using a bunch of jargon.

That’s your lesson for the day. Get started and have fun.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. – Anais Nin