Becoming a Better Writer

I make no secret of the fact that I'm a dedicated (some might say obsessive) reader. To me, writing is the natural output of a lifetime of reading. Hence this blog, both to satisfy my craving to write and to provide a forum for sharpening my writing skills. Even if it's on a blog that no one ever reads (except for my Dad. Thanks Dad!), writing for an "audience" forces me to write better, to challenge myself, to distill my thoughts and to write them as clearly and precisely and beautifully as possible.

As I get more serious about my writing, two key goals emerge. The first is to make writing a daily habit. If I can make writing an automatic part of my daily routine, I'll have taken care of the hardest part of writing. That is, simply carving out time to put words on the page. The second is to systematically improve my writing.

To achieve both these aims, I'm going to be experimenting over the course of the next several months with a series of daily writing exercises. I came up with 15 of them, some culled from the internet and some from the shadowy recesses of my brain. I'll pick one each day to do in the morning after waking up. I have to do all fifteen before starting over, so in each month I'll go through the list of exercises twice.

Here are the exercises I'll be doing. I'm excited about them because I know they will stretch me to improve my writing in new ways. I already began this morning with the "freestyle poem." Anyway, I hope that the output of at least some of these will be worth sharing here on this blog. If you see any unusual content here that seems out of the norm for me, you'll now know why!

Writing Exercises

15 in total, repeat twice each month!

1. Write a freestyle poem.
2. Write a sonnet, following the rhyme scheme.
3. Create 10 unusual metaphors or similes.
4. Stream of consciousness/freewriting for 15 minutes.
5. Write a "top 5" article.
6. Critique a work of art (a film, book, poem, painting, etc).
7. Write a vivid, colorful description of a place. Really make it come alive.
8. Write a profile of a person I know. Make them come alive on the page!
9. Copywrite passages from writers I love. Aim for at least 20 minutes.
10. Mad lib- make a story from a random noun, adjective, and verb.
11. Write an old article I never got around to.
12. Write a 3 page short story.
13. Role play: write for 15 minutes from the POV of the first animal or person you see.
14. Write about a past experience, travel, or event as vividly as possible
15. Creativity & Connections: Pick one influential work, idea, or person and connect it in writing to as many other ideas, works and people as possible.