I am still deviating from talking about what I have learned intellectually from other sources or things that make sense to my Vulcan half; at least for now. I might get back to those sorts of posts, but I think I am going to talk about the ‘in the dirt’ portion of my personal journey for a little bit.
Now, on to the subject.
In this post, I will give some of what I have done since my imagination started to pick up again. It has been slight, but I am able to write again. It was a minor reboot once I got back to nature, an environment that inspires me. The books that I mentioned in earlier posts, i.e. “What’s Your Poison”, are not moving forward yet, but an idea I had some years ago has now evolved into a slightly different story and actually has a bit of a plot rather than just an idea. There are several pages that might need a few edits and extra rewording to get the flow right, but the progress is there.
Here is what I am doing. I have been able to define some of the key elements of the story and I wrote them down on index cards before I forgot. Naturally, I needed some way to see at a glance which story the index cards belonged to since there is more than one. So, what I did was think of a little easy to draw picture that described the story or set it apart from the others and put it in the top corner of the index card. A friend suggested that I use colored pencils or some such to identify what the card is about: character, plot, etc. I still haven’t gotten to it because I prefer to focus on the writing process rather than organizing, obviously. I know; procrastination. My friend has been pushing me to use this method because she knows that my brain remembers color well and it should make things easier for me to see and keep track of. It is nice to have someone in your corner to tell you that you are not doing what you should. Friend, thank you for keeping me on target.
I have, also, been working on writing exercises. This is because I am very disappointed in my descriptive skills. This slows my writing down, discourages me, and discouragement is like a bucket of ice water on the flames of imagination.
Therefore, even though I have had a jump start, I am spending more time on honing my skills rather than writing my own work. Seems counterproductive because I should use the imagination while it is energetic, right? That is how it seems to me, but I am also hoping that my current efforts will pay dividends in the future. This is in the hopes that, when I have imaginative sparks later on, my writing will flow more freely and require less editing and rewording, therefore, saving me time and effort in opening up to the ideas.
“What are these practices, already?” Without any more ado, here is a writing practice I did.
I picked a movie scene I thought was emotionally intensive, as I struggle with showing emotion rather than telling. I can do it. It is simply not easy for me and requires a good deal of effort, as does most “show don’t tell.”
Now, I would suggest that it is a scene from a movie you like. This is supposed to be practice, but there is no reason it can’t be enjoyable. If you enjoy your practice, you will learn better.
I picked a scene from “X-men Apocalypse.” One thing I did have trouble with was how to write moments where the view changes every few seconds. You know the type… where there are events going on in multiple locations all at the same time. That is what went on in the scene I picked. The X-men are in Cerebro. Apocalypse is elsewhere affecting what is going on in Cerebro and many places around the entire world with a voice over of Apocalypse’s rant while these catastrophic events unfold.
The selection starts at 1 hour, 7 minutes and ends at 1 hour, 14 minutes, give or take.
Here is a link to my rendition of the scene.
The whole scene was about seven minutes long. The page tally was 5, and the word tally came up to be 2,029. It took a couple hours give or take for me to write this, probably because I had to keep rewinding to analyze the expressions, which I have a very hard time describing, and to make sure I got the lines worded correctly. There were a few times when I went back, I found that I had actually missed an element that I had intended to write, but had lost track of when trying to write all the other things that were going on in those few seconds, all at the same time. Your eyes can pick up so much more visually than when dealing with the written word, creating much more information in a single moment. Sometimes, however, there is added pleasure and retention involved in slowing down and taking the time to absorb and relish.
Did I write the scene to any advantage? Different people might have different opinions and I am searching for those opinions by allowing others to read it. If you have an opinion on the text, please, let me know in the comments at the bottom of the “X-men Apocalypse: No More Spears” page or leave me a message on my Contact page. Just, please, make it constructive; no trolling or hating.
I have done this partially through other movie scenes from other movies and I intend to keep practicing with this method. I don’t know how it will work for me, but I must give it time. I also don’t know how it will work for other people. Something that works for some doesn’t always work for others. My advice, try it and stick to it for a while; long enough for it to make some difference. If it doesn’t seem to work, try something else. Find out what works for you and the only way you can do that is if you try different methods. As always, try to have fun. Enjoy the wonder.
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