I’ve been trying to figure out why writing exercises bore me.  The writer’s group I belong to used to assign them on a regular basis as homework but few people did them.  The lack of response made me realize why I find exercises boring.  Most don’t seem geared toward teaching writing.  They seem more like writing prompts to help someone blocked.  Think about it.  The most common writing exercises sound like this.  Write about an attic.  Write about your first friend.  Well, personally I don’t learn much from those.  I want to improve my craft, not come up with new subjects to write about.  That I can do on my own.

A few exercises though, do help.  Ones that say, for instance, to take a work in progress and write a portion of it from a different point of view.   Those challenge me because it forces me to try something outside my normal safe boundaries.  But somehow even that type of exercise doesn’t feel like enough.

I’m not saying this because I think I have nothing to learn about the craft.  It’s the opposite.  The problem is finding out what works for me.  I’m sorry, but the creative writing instructor who told me to write about a peanut didn’t teach me anything.

In contrast, I’ve learned a lot from books like Jessica Morrell’s ‘Between the Lines’.  Her section, for example, on prologues, when they work, why they fail, and when they should be used, taught me a lot.  And that’s how I learn.  Show me why something works or doesn’t, and send me away to play.  I learn, too, from having my work edited.  If someone suggests looking at how the work changes by flipping the order of a sentence, or by using a more active word, I’ll go away with my pages, play with the words, and learn.

Which doesn’t really sound like an exercise in writing any more than a list of prompts.  Exercise is supposed to make us work though so I suppose in the long run what’s important isn’t how you define an exercise in writing but what the end result is for the writer.

So what constitutes exercise in your writing?  How do you learn and challenge your ability?  How do you make sure you continue to grow as a writer?

A friend recently asked how to tell when your story is finished. My knee-jerk answer was, ‘never’. Seems like there is always one more thing to tweak, one more sentence to swap around, one more story thread to tie in. And one more comma to add.
Realistically a story is finished when all the questions have been answered. When all the promises made to the reader have been fulfilled. And when the expected character growth has been reached.
I am one of those writers who knows the last line before I know the story as a whole, or how I am going to get to that last line. It’s like the dramatic ending, the final piece of dialog pops into my head as an answer to the ‘what if’ question, and then writing revolves around reaching that last line and what needs to happen to bring it to life. Which means I always know when the story is finished. But at the same time, the end feels more like a moment to pause and catch the breath than an actual ending. which is probably why series interest me more than stand-alone books.
One of the things that bothered me during my years as an EMT was that during a call we had a relationship with a person for only a brief time, and after the call, questions were never answered. I never found out how the people did, if they were able to put their lives back together, how they managed to move on from the event. Sure, some sent thank you cards but that was rare. The majority of the time the story never had an ending, happy or otherwise. The same thing holds true of reading newspaper articles. The reader gets dropped into the story and then there is rarely follow-up afterwards. I no longer read newspapers.
With writing though, there must be some sort of ending so the reader isn’t cheated. So how do you decide when your ending has been reached?

Up up until two years ago I wrote at night.  After dinner and dishes were done, I’d make a cup of tea, settle in with the laptop, and turn on the music.  I have a collection of writing music that includes oldies, folk music, and soundtracks.  Loreena McKennitt, Lisa Gerrard, Wicked Tinkers (for the action sequences), music from movies such as The Waterhorse and A Thousand Roads.  But two years ago all that quit working (see the Fallout post). 

When you research writing exercises someone always suggests trying a new writing venue, like if you normally write someplace quiet, try someplace noisy.  Well, sorry, but I scoffed.  Until I started restoring a tiny cabin I’d lived in many years ago.  Rustic, with no running water or electricity, it’s surrounded by forest, with a nearby salmon-bearing stream.   As part of the restoration, I moved in a stray cat with a kitten in order to reduce the mouse population.  I’ve always been a dog person, but found myself worrying about the cats getting lonely at night.  So I’d walk through the woods with my flashlight to sit with them for a while.  Then I decided it was stupid to waste flashlight batteries and lit the old kerosene lanterns.  Then I decided since I was just sitting down there doing nothing, maybe I could write something short.  No laptop, no music, not even much light.  Plus a kitten sitting on my shoulder and a cat sitting on the paper.  Why is it cats sit on writing anyway?

I guess that writing exercise hangs around because there’s truth in it after all.

So what is your perfect writing/creating environment, and have you ever taken up the challenge of trying something the polar opposite?  I’ll confess, there’s something about the slower pace and more intimate connection with words through paper and pen that I’ve missed.  And there’s something to be said for the warm gold circle of a lantern.  Except for this moment.  The cat just singed her tail on the glass chimney.