Saturday, August 27, 2011

The One Sentence Plan

So I'm gonna give this blog thing the ol' community college try. Figure if I'm gonna go around calling myself a writer, I should have some words to show in between actual writing jobs. That might be a whole lotta words. Some of those words may be introspective silliness, but hopefully there will be some nuggets of semi-precious metal in there somewhere.

I thought I'd start things off by getting back to a writing exercise that I found very useful as a young lad. Some of you creative types out there might find it a fun little challenge. Assuming, of course, anyone is reading this. I call it “OSP”—One Sentence Plan. It comes from being told by a writing instructor to write every single day, even if it's just one nonsensical sentence. But don't be lame and write something like “This is my one sentence today;” or self-referential journal pondering like “Gosh, I with this writer's block would crumble already.” And don't cheat yourself by pulling from something you've already written. That defeats the purpose.

The key is to keep it creatively interesting. If nothing leaps to mind in an acceptable timeframe, what works for me is to pick up an art book, find an image, and write a sentence about it. Of course, you are free to write more than one sentence. I found it would eventually evolve into paragraphs, even the occasional short story. But don't worry about trying to impress anyone. Just do it, no muss, no fuss, and then move on to your other creative chores. It's kinda like stretching your back when you wake up in the morning.

I'm gonna sign off on this entry with my OSP for the day:

Roman columns stood guard against the darkness that lay pressed at their backs as he slowly made his way to the rectangle of white light that awaited him. Things scraped in the shadows, like knives on stone. Yet it was the light that made a fire of fear in the pit of his stomach.

(Inspired by the cover to the Restoration Hardware catalog that came in the mail yesterday!)

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