Monday, September 15, 2008

Want to write?

My blogging mentor Susi Q posted a comment that got me to thinking...maybe you oughta have an online blog to help us not-so-gifted writers but people with thoughts...on how to put them down and make them into stories. Okay-here goes. First step is just to write (Morning Pages) your thoughts down freely without thinking about grammar, spelling, etc you can fix that later. Write daily about anything or nothing just to loosen up.

Another technique is to cluster or web your thoughts. See diagram above in the large circle write your thought or topic you want to write about, then start clustering out from the main thought anything that comes to mind. These smaller circles can also be clustered or expanded. Keep doing this until some thoughts come to mind on what to write about. This is the first stage-writing freely, later you can go back and rewrite and edit but you need to have something to edit so WRITE. We are using these techniques in our Writer's WORDshop group I talked about in an earlier blog. Click to see the details,  Writing the Natural Way by Gabrielle Rico can be ordered online, used for about $10. The author also has a website with a great example of clustering. It's helped me to improve my writing.

Try Morning Pages or Clustering and tell me what happens. It also can help you find more topics to write about for blogging.

3 comments:

  1. Morning pages. I remember them well. I don't know why I stopped doing them. They really do help shake the clutter from the recesses of my brain.

    Excuses like, "I just have so much to do in the morning", don't really have a lot of validity. We all make time for what's important to us.

    I like the clustering idea. I think I'm going to do it... it just looks like a funthing to do.

    Take care of you, Lin. Know that you're missed, thought about, appreciated and loved!!!

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  2. This reminds me of The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. A wonderful invitation to create! I love the graphic organizer, Lin.

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  3. That is a very helpful suggestion. I will check it out. The clustering diagram looked like something we did with the students and called it brainstorming...

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