Joshua Braff/writing exercises

Oh. Okay. I've read the rest of Joshua Braff's blog now and feel like a bit of an idiot. He's Zach Braff's brother. As in the guy I was talking about only a couple of posts ago when reviewing The Garden State.

And there's only writing exercises in the last couple of posts, being:-

1. Before you put any character on paper, first write about a hundred words that describe that person. It’s important to attempt to “free write” or keep your pen moving regardless of what’s being written. In other words, the hundred words is not going to be a part of your story but more an exercise in trying to learn who the person is that you’re wanting to place on the stage of your piece. (link)

2. Write a story that covers five minutes of time in four pages. The drill requires you to focus intently on detail. The narrative camera is super, super close. Five minutes of some point of view for four pages. Double space is fine. (link)

3. Attempt to free-write (write without lifting your pen off the paper), for ten full minutes (time yourself if you want to) about the lunchbox/es you took to school and what it was that you remember being inside them. Attempt to smell it all as you write, the lunchbox, the food, the cafeteria, the boy’s hair sitting next to you. There can be a great deal of texture found in the simple yet oh so common places in our memories. (link)

And I found somewhere in Australia that sells it, Angus & Robertson, but they obviously import it and it costs $43AUD, so it will have to go onto my wishlist for the present.

I might have to go and buy this CD I'm listening to samples of though. I think I've fallen in love with a song called Chocolate. They remind me a lot of speedstar*. It's a shame speedstar* don't have samples up so you could all see what I mean. Oh, but you can check out samples of The Meadows, who also remind me of Snow Patrol/speedstar*.

Listening to: Snow Patrol - Final Straw album sampler on their site