Exercise of the Week
If you always could use something to jump start your brain, remember to check back here weekly. We will constantly challenge your mind to break out of its usual box and travel across lands it couldn't think possible, thus opening up doors and possiblities to your writing.
This weeks exercise is all about coming up with words that will not only help shape your character on paper but also by image.
Create a Character, or take and existing one and start listing all the words you would want associated with the personality of the person. Start with adverbs and move your way around to verb, noun, adjectives and so on.
Next image what the character would look like if they were standing in front of you. Make a listing of words that would describe every detail of them. Now start with a small sketch of the outline of their body, then take the words you used to describe them and start to fill them into the body to create the same. Basically your going to draw out your character using the words you wrote down.
Try to use words to describe the specific parts, like if your drawing their eyes, use words like blue, almond shaped, any and everything that talks about your characters eyes. When your done, not only will you have a pretty cool art piece you will have every word you can think of to describe your character so you can use this as a reference sheet. Good Luck!
Want to share your character drawing? Just drop a letter to Alex, our creative manager, up load your image and you might see it in next weeks creative challenge!
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Creative Spots
Linda Cole | Assistant Editor
As promised each month, here are some of our readers favorite spots they go to think. Places that help them think and produce some of their best works. Want to see your favorite spot in our issue? Then submit a photo and tell us why this spot is so specially to you.
There is a tree in the woods near my house. Its looks like it has many trunks that twist and turn. I can take my journal out there and sit for hours just listening to the birds and breeze of the wind. It helps me to clear my head.
- Lindsay | Luray, Va
I live with in a condo by the sea. I"m a huge romantic so most of my poems are based on love. I like to take my notebook out early in the mornings and watch the sunrise. It brings in the inspriation like it brings in the new day.
- Robyn | Ocean City, Md
Believe it or not my grandmother is very good at telling stories. When I was little I loved to listen to them but I never realized the would make great storie starters. I usually will come over to her house and have a recorder so that I have the first hand account.
- Matthew | Springfield, Md
So I guess that tecnically my spot isn't so much of a spot but something that inspires me nontheless. When the sun sets and the clouds and the sky look magical, that gets my mind turning in ways it wouldn't do normally. It opens up my mind to create some of the most beautiful places using words only.
- Hillary | Winchester, Va
My mother is big on gardening. She took the pool that my dad built and turned it into a tropical jungle. After he left, I would sit by it and collect my thoughts on my laptop. Next month, my first novel is coming out, a tale of divorce and the stories behind each person it affects.
- Marcella | Washington, D.C.
For some reason, I love the rain. Dancing, singing, and lately its been a very inspiring item for my writing. I go and sit under this tree with my polkadot umbrella and write different thoughts and story ideas that come through my head. The only thing I hope for is that the rain will last a while.
- Mary | Gathersburg, Md
So the roommates I have are sort of loud and noisy, which leaves no place for me to think. I go down the street to the local coffee shop whip out my laptop and go to town. The thing is that people around me are always having the most interesting conversations that I can use in my stories.
- Alfred | Fairfax, Va
I know I might be labeled as a nerd for this but I find the best place for me to think and get ideas is to go to the library and pull out a book, find a quote I like and write it down. Then I try and write a poem around the specific quote. It certainly makes for some funny poems.
- Lucy | College Park, Md
There is a mountain about an hour away from where I live with a trail that leads to this stream. I'm not like most people, the sound of the stream brings ideas and different names to my mind. Unlike my sister who also enjoys the hikes with me, it does not make me have to pee.
- Lucas | Millbrook, Va
I have always had this fasination with the sky. Clouds, stars, trees and the different shapes they take against the sky. In the middle of my backyard is a small clearing and when you lay down to look up its like the trees stretch to the sky making them look as one. Its a magifisant site that always inspires me to write.
- Storm | Warrington, Va
Do you have a creative spot you want to share with us? Let us know! Fill out the form and submit a photo and look for in an upcoming issue!