Process of Writing Exercise
'The most remarkable thing about John Cheever was his capacity for invention. You could not be with him for fifteen minutes before he would look across the street or the restaurant, spy an interesting face, and the story will begin.' Donaldson, S (2002) John Cheever: A Biography. iUniverse, Inc.
This was my feeling when it came to the exercise (despite not being on the street). Along with the instructions in the beginning of this exercise, I recalled a diary I wrote years ago to help inspire me with the key aspects of the opening sentence that had to involve, seeing, hearing and smelling. The setting I used was based on a community centre I visited in February 2009 where I auditioned for an extra's role in a film. I remembered the air, weather, sound and everything that was in front of me that day. In his works, Cheever used a similar technique in the form of unedited diaries that were published soon after his death.
'The Journals were not initiated with publication in mind. They were the workbooks for his fiction. They were the workbooks for his life.' Dyer, G (2010: vii) The Journals - John Cheever. Vintage.
When writing, I found myself drifting, as my mind always had the habit of playing music to drown out all other sound. Daydreaming is a problem I have, however, I used it to my advantage. This goes back to the reference of Cheever using scraps of himself for his stories.
'I don't work with plots. I work with intuition, apprehension, dreams, concepts.' Kureishi, H (2009) Collected Stories. Vintage.
It's interesting to see how you chose begin a story, how you are using a setting that you have recalled from your life. Once you have the setting, how do yoy go about building the rest of the story?
ReplyDeleteI have noticed two mistakes; at one point you use a lower case 'i' instead of an upper case one. And the bracketed sentince "despite I wasn't in the street" isn't quite grammatically correct. I hope this is helpful.
How interesting that you have kept diaries and that you are still finding them useful for inspiration when writing. Looking back on diaries is an incredible way to remind yourself of everything that you may have forgotten otherwise.
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