Last night was my weekly creative writing class and I must say that I had a blast. It was the first night that we were able to do some writing and group participation. (a much needed change of pace from listening to our instructor simply read to us various writings)
The teacher decided to have us do a writing exercise that was called "True Lies," in which we were told to write a small blurb, about 50 words, telling a lie, yet somehow connecting some truth to it. I'm a very black and white kind of guy. Those instructions were a bit to gray for me and so I had him give an example or two, then I set my pen to motion. Here's my true lie.
I'll sit in contentment as we share our raft. She'll probably rest her weary head on my shoulder. "I told you so," I'll say. "I knew this would happen." She'll deny any wrong doing, but I'll sit happy in the knowledge that I was right. After all, happiness is a state of mind, not a follow up to circumstance.
The class was asked to try to brainstorm about what the truth was and it became something of a riddle for some people. When they asked what my truth was, I explained that my beautiful bride-to-be and I are going on a cruise. That's right! Her father decided to buy us a 7 day Mexican Riviera cruise on Princess Cruise lines. We'll be leaving in March during spring break. I'll post more on this later, but for now, I'll explain how it ties in to my true lie. The lie portion of my blurb was a prediction that our cruise line would end up sinking. See, I have a fear of being on the open sea. I blame it on diabetic camp at age 8, but that's another story. All in all, I'm taking a huge step in overcoming my fears, by going on this cruise. I know it will be wonderful, BUT, I've jokingly told my fiancée that "I've seen the Titanic movie, I know how this ends."
So, the truth was, the fact that we'll be going on a cruise over the open sea.
The lie was my 'knowing' about the ship sinking, leaving us to sit in a life raft.
That's it for now. Have any of you done any neat writing exercises that you'd like to share?
11 comments:
Wow, very creative twist =)
Good job!
Yeah, when I went on an Alaskan cruise in June I was quite sillily worried about running into an iceberg. But it was much better than being on a plane :)
i did one today actually based on my blog post. All about faux-breathing.
P.S.--your post title threw me off for a minute. aha.
What a fun exercise! Sounds like you're getting a lot out of your writing class. Way to lie. ;)
I thought I got it right away-but I could also swear that you have mentioned the cruise somewhere before right?
Thanks guys!
Bane I agree... much better than a plane. I'd rather sink slowly to my doom, then come crashing down fast. LOL
And David, I don't know if I did mention or not. I just found out yesterday that we got the cruise. We talked about options, but more than likely, I could have just mentioned a passing comment somewhere that I don't like being on the open sea. I like the idea of it, just not the reality of it in my life lol.
The title threw me off too, True Lies is truly one of my favorite movies!
I have been doing so many writing exercises lately that they started to detract from my writing. I finally realized the book wouldn't be writing in the form of exercises.
Check out the snowflake method:
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php
That's funny and awful together. You have an award at my blog.
Winged Writer
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Super cool--good job!
I haven't taken a writing class/seminar in a couple of years, but one of the exercises I loved was writing poetry based upon a current event. Okay, I probably only liked this assignment because the instructor raved about my Iraq War-esque poem and made me feel smart, but it was still a cool exercise.
P.S.
I just saw your wedding day countdown--Wow, 11 days left!!! How exciting!!!
I love writing exercises :) Sometimes I miss my college days, but probably only the creative writing classes. We went on the same cruise as the one you'll be going on--you'll have a blast!
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