Interesting Assignments From January

1.  Write a letter or poem addressed to your fellow citizens in which you share one idea for making the world a better place.  Is it the importance of individual citizens exercising civic responsibility?  Is it having faith in a higher power?  Perhaps you have a vision for education reform?  Be as detailed as you can about the program you propose.

2.  First prepare a one- or two-page "bio sheet" of a character you'd like to include in a future Work In Progress (WIP).  Include such attributes as: physcal and behavioral characteristics, temperment, habits of speech, beliefs (spiritual, ideological), eccentricities, fears, anxieties, likes and dislikes.  Next, write a scene consisting of narration, dialogue, and action, in which your viewpoint character interacts with another character, and in which you capture as many of the above character atributes as you can.

3.  Write a scene involving two or more individuals meeting over dinner to discuss serious business or to celebrate a special occasion.  Work in detailed descriptions of the food and the way it has been prepared together with the particulars of the get-together.

4.  Take one of your newest ideas or insights --one of thoe New Year's resolutions you never followed through on, for example--and work up the idea into a step-by-step action plan.  Then write an essay in which you describe what actually took place when you put your ideas to work.  Don't leave out the missteps or the unforeseen snags.

5.  Begin creating a world on a single page.  Choose any setting you wish--a sublime nature setting like the Yosemite Valley; a twisting dark road in Romania where vampires are said to be lurking; a village in Uganda where medical missionaries are trying to save the lives of malnourished children.

6.  How can you help yourself uncore your natural voice?  Write a page in which you describe, in a relaxed, informal manner, without groping for impressive words, how you feel about one of the front page stories appearing in this monrning's newpaper.  After you finish the page, read it aloud.  If it doesn't sound like you, circle the phrases or sentences that seem artificial or forced.  Then keep revising the paragraph until it seems to capture your natural voice.  Now apply the voice test to your current WIP.  Turn to any page, read it aloud, and if it sounds artificial, get busy revising it.

7.  Make a list of commonplace objects and then free-associate on their symboli possibilities.  Afterwards, compare your associations with those presented in a dictionary of symbols.