For Christmas a few years ago, my friends David and Reatha gave me a copy of Monica Wood's "The Pocket Muse", a book of ideas and encouragement for writers. Unfortunately, it was given about four or five weeks before I decided to stop writing. Recently, I have picked the book up again and started to look through it again.

One of the most immediately striking things about the book, for me at least, was the number of writing exercises she puts in the book. Writing exercises are something I have never really attempted or even considered seriously. I mean, of course, I did creative writing exercises in high school, short vignettes, stories, and the occasional stab at poetry. One in particular that stands out in my mind was an assignment by my 10th grade English teacher to write a short horror story. Then we read our stories in front of the class. My story -- the brief tale of a five year old who murders his parents, keeps their body parts preserved in the refrigerator and then stops aging as a result, becoming a murderous and immature psychopath in a tiny body -- was quite the hit with the class, but not in the way I had intended. At random intervals during the story, the class would break into laughter, which was quite confusing to me. I asked a friend later what was so funny, and he said, "It was the faces you made when you read the horrible parts. Sort of a 'Did I really write that?' look." But that was 10th grade, an eon ago by my reckoning, and I have thought little about the idea of writing exercises since.

Some of this no doubt is related to my musical training, or lack thereof. I was given a guitar for my sixteenth birthday and taught myself to play by reading guitar mags and playing in bands with other beginning musicians. And while I don't think of myself as any great shakes on the axe, I am a decent guitarist, at least on rhythm. Never got the hang of lead guitar. But, now I seem to think that the same learning curve will apply to every creative endeavor I attempt. No real personal practice time, no two hours of scales or chord combos every day, just the natural understanding of the form mixed with some small amount of talent equaling an eventual competence. But, now i am finding that trying to write by just leaping headlong into an epic novel (even with my attempts to not take it seriously and write something just for the fun of it) is not working. So, I am thinking that maybe a few exercises might be just the thing.

And since I have this nice, shiny new blog, I figure that I might as well just post the results of these exercises here. If I end up having the sac to do so, I will prepend the title of the post with [WE] for writing exercise, so that you may skip them if they become tiresome. I must warn you that these will likely not be pretty. They will be the first drafts of a beginning writer, as pink and raw and clumsy as newborn mice. You read them at your own risk.
Finally, two personal notes. First, I am going out of town tomorrow night to take care of some personal business and will be gone for the rest of the weekend, most likely not returning until Sunday. If you want to reach me, you can call me on my cell, text me from the profile page of my lj, email me, or leave a comment here. Comments are emailed to me, and I can check my email from my phone, assuming I am not roaming where I am going.

Second, Jay is very excited because he just found out Death Cab for Cutie is coming to the Alabama Theatre in November. I was really excited for a second because I saw the names of two other bands listed as well, OK GO, who I have been listening to lately, and Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins [see also]. Jenny Lewis's solo album "Rabbit Fur Coat" stayed on play on my iPod for a while, and she is, like Meg White, one of those rock girls that I seem to fall for without really knowing why. Maybe it's good that it turns she won't be opening up for them here, I might take to fauning over her if I saw her live. Anyway, neither of those bands will be opening for DCFC here, instead a band called Ted Leo + the Pharmacists, a band whose name tickles strings of recognition in my mind but who I am nearly positive I have never heard, will be opening. This plus Derek Webb and (maybe) The Mars Volta in October means I might have a busier than normal concert schedule for the fall.