14. From image to writing

Spend a minute or two looking at this photograph.

Now write for 10 - 15 minutes using this photograph as your starting point.

13. From image to writing

Spend a minute or two looking at this photograph.

Now write for 10 - 15 minutes using this photograph as your starting point.



If you get stuck, look at the first Comment (below) for a few ideas.

12. Writing Experiment

In the 1950s, a group of French writers began meeting every month. They called themselves Oulipo. The word is a kind of acrostic. The full title of the group was: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated, this means "workshop of potential literature".

They were experimental writers who wanted to explore new and different ways of creating pieces of literature. They would often set themselves tasks that were very demanding. For example, Georg Perec, a leading member of the OuLiPo group, once wrote a 40,000 word novel. That might not sound all that difficult - most novels are at least that length. However Perec set himself a very demanding rule: he must not include any words containing the letter 'E'!

Why did they do this?

They wanted to come up with new ways of expressing ideas. They wanted to avoid using cliches and using conventional ways of expressing things. Here is a simple example. When we sit down to write about fear, our heads immediately fill with cliches: we might write 'I felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristle' or 'A shiver ran down my spine' or 'My blood ran cold.' They wanted to make their brains work harder, looking for new wyas to express things.


And that's what TODAY'S writing task is all about.

Retell the story of Little Red Riding Hood without using ANY words containing the letter 'E'.

This means that you can't use lots of common words like:

the red he she we they ... and so on.

You also can't use:
elephant effervescence here there everywhere anywhere

You might need 20 - 30 minutes for this task. Good luck.

11. Fairy stories written quickly

Do you remember when you were a child, and your parents and teachers read nursery rhymes and fairy stories to you?
Do you remember the story of Little Red Riding Hood?

Rewrite the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Try to remember the story as accurately as you can.

Spend 10 - 15 minutes on the task.

10. Who am I?

Who am I?

Don't think about it ... just write!

50 sentences, no stop, each beginning with:

I am ...


[If you get stuck, look at Comment 1 below]

9. Should schooling be compulsory?

Two hundred years ago, very few children attended school. In those days, schools were for the children of the wealthy. In 1872, State schooling was made 'free, compulsory and secular'; this meant that ALL children, no matter how rich or how poor, could attend school. In fact they HAD to attend school - it was compulsory.

But at least everyone could afford to go to school because it was FREE.

And it was SECULAR - that is, schooling was not to be religious.

Nowadays, children are required to attend school until they are at least 16, and some people want to lift the age of compulsory atendance to 18.

What do you think?

Write an Opinion Piece, putting your views on whether schooling should be compulsory in this country.


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8. School days, school days ...

There's an old song that goes:

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days
Readin' and writing' and 'Rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hickory stick ...


Write a brief history of your schooling up to the end of primary school
Begin with your time at kinder (if you went to kinder) and write about each year in turn.
Things to include:
* The school(s) you attended
* The names of your teachers
* The names of friends
* The funny / sad / scary / exciting things that happened during your school years
* Getting into trouble
* Great achievements
* Moments of disappointment
* What were the BEST things?
* What were the WORST things?

In this piece, concentrate on detailed description.

Write for at least 15 minutes on this task.


###

7. From pictures to writing

Look closely at these two pictures.

Now, use the pictures as a starting point, and write whatever comes into your head.

6. Stories I loved

Dear fellow writer,

I'm writing this letter to you to introduce today's Writing Task.

Take a look at the picture above. It's a kids' book, the kind that many children have as they grow up. When I was a liitle kid, there was a book named Brave Bryan that I liked a lot. It was about a boy named Bryan who went into the forest at night and became lost. It was a pretty scary book, because the trees in the story had long arms, and tried to grab Bryan. I remember loving that book.

When I had children of my own, almost 40 years ago, there were wonderful books available for kids. Here are some that spring readuily to mind:

* The Very Hungry Caterpillar
* The Cat in the Hat
* Where the Wild Things Are
* Yertle the Turtle (another Dr Suess book)
* Green Eggs and Ham

I used to love reading these books to my children at bedtime.


Please write back and tell me your memories of reading when you were very young. Did your parents read to you? What were the books you loved the best? Can you remember any particular stories that really excited you or frightened you?

Write for 10 or 15 minutes - I'll look forward to reading it.

Yours sincerely

Barry Carozzi

5. More stones in the pond ...

There's really no limit to what you might write in your journal. You can :

 let off steam;
 draft a poem;
 wonder about what a wonderful / strange day you have had;
 wonder about what an exciting / boring day you have had;
 have a rant about something that gets up your nose;
 recall things that happened to you when you were a child;
 write the lyrics of a song;
 write about what you'd rather be doing;
 reflect on how your life is going;
 jot down snippets of other people's conversations;
 make lists of interesting words;
 reflect on how your writing is going;
 create thumbnail sketches of characters for a novel or short story;
 create mind maps;
 jot down quotations that you think you might use later ...and so on.

Writing down these ideas onto the screen is like dropping small stones into a pool of water. Each stone creates a small splash in your mind ...

Right now, choose ONE of these splashes - one of these ideas - and write for 10 minutes - or longer if you wish.

When you have finished, send the results to me.


###

4. Write a poem: When I was a kid

Close your eyes and picture yourself years ago, when you were a little kid. Let images of that time float into your mind...

Now, write a simple list poem. Begin each stanza with the line:

When I was a kid

and follow it with three lines, each consisting of an image [a word picture].
Here are a couple of examples:

When I was a kid at school
My teacherswere all old and crabby
We sat in wooden desks with lids tha banged down like rifle shots
We kept tadpoles in a jar by the window

When I was a kid at school
I got the strap for throwing acorns at Karina Kerley
I had to sit next to a girl for a whole month!
The tadpoles grew legs.

Write for 10 - 15 minutes. Create at last 5 stanzas (or verses)


#

3. Small splashes in your mind

In his excellent book, On Writing Well, William Zinsser has this to say :
"You learn to write by writing. It's a truism, but what makes it a truism is that it's true, and it can't be repeated often enough. The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis."

That's the point of One Day at a Time; it's role is to help you to force yourself to produce a certain number of words every day.

So what you are doing is starting a writing journal. In your journal you can :

 let off steam;
 draft a poem;
 wonder about what a wonderful / strange day you have had;
 wonder about what an exciting / boring day you have had;
 have a rant about something that gets up your nose;
 recall things that happened to you when you were a child;
 write the lyrics of a song;
 write about what you'd rather be doing;
 reflect on how your life is going;
 jot down snippets of other people's conversations;
 make lists of interesting words;
 reflect on how your writing is going;
 create thumbnail sketches of characters for a novel or short story;
 create mind maps;
 jot down quotations that you think you might use later ...and so on.

Writing down these ideas onto the screen is like dropping small stones into a pool of water. Each stone creates a small splash in your mind ...

Right now, choose ONE of these splashes - one of these ideas - and write for 10 minutes - or longer if you wish.

When you have finished, send the results to me.

2. What about me?

Today you get to write on a topic on which you are an EXPERT!

Noone in the world knows more about this topic than you. The topic is: YOU.


All about ME

Write for TEN MINUTES. Tell me as much about yourself as you can in that time.

[If you need a few ideas to get started, read my profile and use it as a 'model'.

I'm looking forward to reading all about you.

1. Patchwork: One Day at a Time

This blog site is about writing.
I've always been a writer. That is to say, for almost as long as I can remember, I've wanted to write.

Here is the story of the first story I ever wrote:
I was very young. I can see the scene vividly still, even though it was almost 60 years ago. I am sitting on the sofa at Aunty Vonny's house. It is Christmas, I think. all of my cousins are there, and my aunts and uncles – my father’s side of the family. The adults are sitting around Aunty Vonny’s lounge room; my cousins are outside playing. I'm on the sofa, in the lounge room, the only child among the grown ups. I have a duplicate book, with white and yellow pages, and I am writing my story on the back side of the sheet. The duplicate book is one my father has brought home from work; he is a labourer with the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works.

I think it must be the Christmas of 1949. I've finished grade one. I’m six and a half.

I'm asking Uncle Charlie a question. Charlie Beale has recently married my cousin Verna – Aunty Vonny’s daughter. I am vaguely aware that my mother doesn’t altogether approve of Charlie Beale. He’s older than Verna by ten years, and he’s been married before.

I ask Uncle Charlie: "How do you spell one?"
He says, "Which one?"
People laugh, and I'm embarrassed.
"There are two ones," he explains, and he is laughing too.
"There's WON - like in 'He won the race '. That's W …O…N. Then there ONE - like 'He only had ONE leg.' That's O …N…E."

I bury myself in my book, in embarrassment.

The Farmer and the Crow

Wun day a crow sat on a fence.
The farmer said, "Get off my fence."
But the crow did not move.
The farmer said, "Get off my fence or I will shoot you!"
But the crow still did not move.
So the farmer shot the crow.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
But he missed.
And the crow laughed and laughed and laughed.
Ha ha ha, he he he, ho ho ho, haw haw haw.

The End.


A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.

I've written millions of words, and hundreds of stories, articles, poems and songs. And I've had around 70 books published. I've also taught writing and editing - to children and adults, in primary schools and secondary schools, TAFE Colleges and universities, and in community groups.

Some people find writing difficult. They get uptight and anxious. They worry about their spelling. They feel tongue-tied. They don't know what to write.

Writing is about getting ideas out of your head and down on paper. And that's what this program is all about.

I'm not going to pretend that it's easy. Sometimes writing is really hard - really, really hard. What I hope to help you see is that, while - yes, it is hard - it can be done.

Your first writing task

TOPIC: Writing and Me
Write for just TEN minutes on that topic

Write about your experiences of writing.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
* The first story I ever wrote
* Writing at primary school
* How I feel about the task of "writing"
* The kinds of writing I like to read

What to do now

Click on FOLLOW and become a follower of this blog. Then email your first piece of writing to me. I'll look forward to reading it, and sending you my comments.

Good luck.