Friday, October 8, 2010

Renaissance method

Back in the history the artists learned their craft by copying their masters. The painter would be working on his painting, and behind him would stand his apprentices doing their best to copy the masters every movement, every stroke on the paper, color blends... The apprentices became so good that today we are uncertain if a work is painted by a master or an apprentice.

Why not use the same method in writing? If you, in spite of all the efforts - or just because of all the efforts - sit there in November, by the computer, and don't know what to write, take your favorite book, and start copying it. Just copy it, word by word, rewrite it.

Learning from the masters

Learning how to write well from John Steinbeck

Writing tips from masters
10 rules of writing fiction part 1) and part 2)

P.S: I was thinking about my assets as a writer, and managed to quickly write a long list of over 60 items... Because, as a writer ANYTHING is an asset :-D I can always write about it, whether it's good, bad, or not worth much :-D

Anyway, I found this one: Write A Movie Script A Writing... (The subject line doesn't seem to have much to do with the article... or list... or what ever. Seems to be just a long list of sayings and thoughts. It's "article snatch", so it's possible that it really is just that - a snatched... something. What ever. It nevertheless makes me think. Could be enough material for several blog entries :-D

I also found this: Ruining Your Writing by Cheap Blogging
I love to write, I want to write, I had to write. If I got paid for doing it, it would be nice.
May that never turn into the opposite.

P.S. Lovely Patricia told me about Derek Sivers' blog, and what he says about music and singing can well be adjusted to writing. Here's his entry about learning to sing. It really doesn't matter if you do it "right" or "well", but just that you do it. Write your story as a short story, article, poem, play, write it like your favorite author, or your favorite hate object author. Write it like romance, write it like mystery, horror, for children, with dogs in roles... play around with it, and with every writing it gets better, because you learn things...

P.P.S How deliberate practice can make you an excellent writer

1 comment:

Hart Johnson said...

early in my writing I was a HECK OF A mimic. I haven't tried it for years, but I suspect I still CAN, but it would feel more tongue in cheek than it did back then because my own voice would be much harder to override.

I think as an EXERCISE though, it is a very good one (I had a poetry writing class in college that required it)