Writing Exercises

I used to write writing prompts and writing exercises daily and weekly for my site, Word Grrls. These are my posts from that site. I will add fresh writing inspiration now and then.

There are 1,788 posts filed in Writing Exercises (this is page 8 of 179).

Words Hurt More

578136_500152220102241_289578109_nThis comes from Facebook:Sarcasm. Because beating the hell out of people is illegal. :c( This group has been in trouble over personal attacks before. There is a huge warning up at the top of the group page now, basically a sign saying don’t take it personally. But, it is personal when it’s about you, isn’t it?

I don’t agree with this (see the image above) at all. Words hurt deeply and cause long lasting damage. Sarcasm can be funny and it has it’s place but it should not be directed at someone, an individual or group/ type of people, with the purpose of belittling them, or harming them in any way.

Humour should be used well, not bitterly. Laughter is the best medicine, but everyone should be laughing and no one should feel cut up and left to cry in the moment or later on. Humour should not make people defensive.

If you really want to hurt someone stop and think about why you want to hurt them. In the long run it is yourself who needs to deal with your own problem, not them. You can only make your own choices – you can not make someone else change or see things your way. Change yourself first. Get over your anger, move on from it or realize it was never that important to your own life. One last thing to consider, if you are THAT angry at someone then you must have strong feelings of love/ caring for them, other wise you would just not care at all. Even if you are right, you can’t have communication until you get past your anger and your angry words.

Sarcasm can be wonderfully funny, when it is done without the intent to harm. Take some time and come up with a great idea for a sarcastic essay about something important to you. Afterwards read it over and see it from an outside perspective. Is it still funny?

Simply Security Questions

I was registering for an online points service with one of the grocery store chains here in Ontario. Part of the process was choosing a security question and then typing in your (unique and individual) answer. Well, I have a problem with the new security questions which pop up. I was just fine with the old standard Mother’s maiden name or Father’s middle name. I knew those, they had a simple and definite answer. 

Maybe they became too standard, maybe they were less secure as they became over used or maybe not everyone knows this information about their parents. Some how there are now new security questions and I usually can’t find a simple answer for any of them. I don’t remember enough, I don’t have strict enough opinions or I just don’t have a preference and this leaves me with no security questions and answers, too often. It’s frustrating. 

Here are the security questions from my recent adventure with them:

If you could be any historical figure who would you be?

Where did you go on your best vacation?

What is the name of your best friend from childhood?

What was the first concert you attended?

What is the name of your favourite teacher?

Do you have answers for all of them? An answer you are sure of enough to be able to remember and have the same answer months from now? Not me. I can think of a lot of historical figures, none I’d really want to be. My best vacation…. I can’t pick one. My best friend from childhood… too many options, we moved a lot when I was a younger child and then I never really was great at keeping friends or making them. Another memory game… the name of my favourite teacher, I can’t pick one from among the faces I remember and I’m not sure how to spell the names I can remember. First concert was Cher, or Sonny and Cher, I guess. Or was there something else I’ve forgotten. Likely so. I picked the concert question because it was the only one I might answer the same way twice. 

The problem with most of these questions is still that they do not come with simple, definite answers. Different spellings, different abbreviations, different ways of writing them (like short forms versus long forms). Even if you give the same answer it might be wrong because you typed it with capital letters or without any spaces the first time you gave the security question answer. 

This is why the old standards of Mother’s maiden name worked. Just type in a last name, with the first letter as a capital because (of course) it is a proper name. I miss the old, simple security questions. Security seems to be pulling us farther and farther away from the very things we are supposed to be accessing. I think it will be easier for someone else to guess my security answer than for me to remember it. 

What would you use as a great security question? Can you think up a few? 

The Archaeology Tool Set

One of the careers I wished for was archaeologist. I wanted to be the person finding out about ancient people. finding ancient and lost cities and working with the museums to display the history I had found. But, it didn’t happen thta way. 

Tonight I found a set of archaeologist tools. 

archaeologist tool set

What time period would you wanto to study if you were an archaeologist? There are more than just dinosaurs… would you study Medieval France? Mayan ruins in South America? The polar ice and all the information frozen through history? 

If you had a set of archaeology tools where would they take you?

5 Unconventional Ways to Improve Your Writing

5 Unconventional Ways to Improve Your Photography.

Apply these same ideas as a writer:

  • Study something, other than writing. Pick a hobby, how about photography?
  • Delete old stories, ideas and such which you “might use some day”. Don’t get trapped by old ideas, old clutter.
  • Limit your gear, make do with what you have. Stop shopping for new software, new books and other tools, accessories. Get back to the basics and rely more on yourself than props.
  • Take a closer look at your subject. Even if you are writing fiction, find something new, look for a fresh angle. Get a new perspective by stepping back from your past research, experience or opinions.
  • Teach someone else about writing. You can also pull together the information and resources you have and teach someone else what you know about the topics you write about. Explaining it all to someone else helps you rediscover what you thought you knew.

You are in a Halloween Horror Movie…

This came from one of my nephew’s friends on Facebook.

You are in a horror movie on Halloween, the first ten people in your chat are: (No cheating!!)

Cries like a baby:
The one who trips while running in the woods:
First to go missing:
Murdered saving you:
Survives by faking death:
Has a solid survival plan nobody listens to:
Spends all the time looking for Twinkies:
Turns into a zombie:
Everyone suspects is the killer:
Is really the killer:

Think of peopel you have read or written (characters of your own creation) where would each fit on the options provided?

Only Seeing What you Want to See – The Forer Effect

I didn’t know there was a name for this. Advertisers use this a lot, but we all fool ourselves and believe something just because we want to.

The Forer effect refers to the tendency of people to rate sets of statements as highly accurate for them personally even though the statements could apply to many people.

Psychologist Bertram R. Forer (1914-2000) found that people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realizing that the same description could be applied to just about anyone.

The most common explanations given to account for the Forer effect are in terms of hope, wishful thinking, vanity and the tendency to try to make sense out of experience, though Forer’s own explanation was in terms of human gullibility. People tend to accept claims about themselves in proportion to their desire that the claims be true rather than in proportion to the empirical accuracy of the claims as measured by some non-subjective standard.

How can you use the Forer Effect in your writing, especially if you are writing copy for sales?

Bring Your Favourite Historical Character to Life on Twitter

You can find real celebrities on Twitter (with the checkmark after their name).

But, you can also find dead celebrities, famous people and others created by someone with an interest in history or just having a lot of snark. I also follow a few who post from the point of view of people living in a specific period of time, like Victorian women.

If you have an interest in a particular celebrity or famous person try searching for the name on Twitter, see what comes up.

If you created a historical fictional account yourself, who or what time period would you mimic? 

Historical Tweets – outdated database but still useful.

Why Should you Take a Digital Sabbatical?

digitalsabbaticalWhen did you last have a day without the Internet? Can you take a day offline, no email, no phone, no TV? Take the time for a digital sabbatical – give yourself a break.

Have you been feeling a little jaded, restless or bored with everything online? Has it all gotten to seem like more of the same, every day the same stuff, the same people, the same stuff to read about?

Or, have you become addicted to the Internet? Do you spend way too much time playing online games? Do you check email and then not get anything else done until you chance to notice how much time flew by? Do you get started with social networks and then feel drained before you have even started on the work or the research you actually planned on doing when you sat down in front of the computer?

If you have landed in a rut with everything online, everything Internet related, everything computer and online shopping and social chatting and web gaming and all the rest….

Take a digital sabbatical.

Take a sabbatical (a vacation) and give yourself fresh perspective. See the bigger picture and find your interest in everything online again by taking a big step back from it all. Being away from it will help you refresh your interest and enthusiasm. Being away will give you the chance to miss it all and want it back again, or not. You may find yourself having time for a lot of other things you’ve been putting off and liking that instead.

Even if you just take some time off, you will give yourself some perspective on how much Internet use is really a good thing. You will also have more to talk about (or write about) once you are back again.

How far can you stay offline? A week long stay-cation, a weekend, or just a few hours with the mobile phone and the Internet powered down?

If you can’t even last a few hours consider yourself addicted to the Internet. This could be a problem. Nothing is good when it’s not in some moderation.

Plan Your Digital Sabbatical

Decide just what your digital sabbatical will be.

Are you going to disconnect for the day or longer? Are you keeping your phone on or is that going to get a break too? What about television? Maybe your sabbatical will just be work or blog related but you will keep in touch with family and friends? Or you may use the time to find new ways to use the Internet – or take up a project which you haven’t had time for in the regular routine where you focus on checking email and other routines.

Plan the time for your sabbatical.

Will you need time off work? Make sure you don’t have appointments where you will need to have access to the Internet. If you have an ongoing project which requires on-call attention see if you can find someone else to be on-call for that day, or those hours. Or give notice that the service may be interrupted during the time you have planned for your digital sabbatical, leave a date and time you expect to return.

Let everyone know you are taking a digital sabbatical.

People may forget and still phone or email you, but at least you did what you could to let everyone know ahead of time. Many people will be amazed by the idea. We have gotten so used to having the Internet, people don’t consider what life was like without it. Leave a note on your site, Twitter account, Facebook page and so on. Give a time and date you plan to return.

Try to stick with it.

I know you will find it difficult not to have the Internet to look up this or that. I do. It can be frustrating not having the things we get so used to, right at our fingertips. But, do your best to stick with the time offline. Give yourself a break. Get away from all that glut of information. Get away from all the people who expect instant gratification from you, as if you really do live connected to your phone and computer 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Unplugging: Try a Digital Sabbatical

Writers of Old Books Don’t Have Twitter Accounts

Reading an old book is interesting because you know the writer is long deceased. The book is like something frozen at one point in time, the story will never change to reflect the modern use of cell phones and you can’t ever contact the writer on Twitter to offer a review of their book.

I do like to look up writers when I am reading their books. I like to see what kind of internet presence they have, do they make use of their Twitter account (if they have one) do they keep their blog/ site updated about upcoming books and give readers tidbits about past books? Do they write a bit about themselves, telling us who they are and why they wrote the story they wrote? I like the odd note about their journey to get the book researched, written and then published.

You can’t do all that with a book written 100 years ago. The writer isn’t going to be answering your email any time soon. It’s a funny feeling, a little eerie/ spooky. Kind of sad too.

What was the last book you read which was older – so old it was written before you were born or more than 100 years ago? If you have never read an old book, why not?