Start a Commonplace Book for Your Writing

I love the idea of keeping a commonplace book for writing. A commonplace book is a journal used to copy favorite poems and quotations for one’s own enjoyment. Decades ago, I used to write down meaningful quotations from books that I read. I still keep those notes in a file and occasionally refer to them. What I found meaningful about the quotations back then is still applicable to my life now. The quotations are also an interesting study of what is pleasing to my “ear” and mind—what makes the beauty of the sentence flow for me.

As I go forward, I want to create a system for not only writing down quotations, but for keeping a list of interesting vocabulary. With the vocabulary list, I intend to include the title of the book where I found the word, its meaning, and the sentence where the word was included. I love books that have words that are not in my everyday vocabulary and would like to save those words for any piece of fiction that I write in the future to add interest for the reader. The list will also be a record of the growth of my own vocabulary. (I never want to stop learning.)

New Gifted Education Blog Launched

When I first started this blog last August, I stated the following as one of my writing goals:

Joel McIntosh, publisher of Prufrock Press, has given me permission to use the content of the 6 ½ years of weekly blogs that I wrote for Prufrock’s Gifted Child Information Blog. I would like to rearrange that material, eliminate outdated information, and create a “best of” resource for parents and/or teachers. I won’t know quite what format that will take until I play around with it a bit.

After playing around with a number of ideas about ways to use the content from the Prufrock blog, I finally came up with a solution. Today I am pleased to announce the new PeakEducational Resources blog, which will update and redo the enormous amount of content that I have amassed. Most of the information I have is not only still very relevant, but essential. I am eliminating content from the previous blog that is outdated, and updating information when necessary. Both parents and educators will find the resources on the new blog to be very helpful. I plan to add entries as quickly as possible.

If the subject matter of the new Peak Educational Resources blog meets your needs, I hope you will subscribe to one of the feeds. Please note that the blog also has a search option, so if you are looking for information on a particular topic, you can use that feature.

I hope you will help spread the word about this new, rich resource.

Writing Workshop with Andre Dubus III

I recently attended a three-hour workshop led by Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog (which was made into a movie) and several other books.

Dubus had us do a number of writing exercises that concentrated on including lots of sensory detail. This was to illustrate his belief that stories should be character driven, not plot driven. According to the author, there are four methods of creating characters:

• Looks—where the character lives and what is in his pockets.
• Speech—what he says, how he says it, and what is not said.
• Actions—gestures, how the character moves, what he does, and how he reacts to others.
• Interior life—what he remembers and fantasizes about.

Indirectly, characters are developed by

• what one character says about another.
• the narrator telling you what’s happening.

Other things that I learned about the author’s writing techniques include the following. He

• writes five days a week, though he didn’t say how long he writes each day.
• reads poetry before he starts writing—I assume as creative inspiration.
• doesn’t outline his stories before writing. He feels that outlines hamper his imagination.
• feels that the storyteller should not ask what happened, but ask what it is like to be in a situation.

To be a good writer, Dubus feels that you must

• have great curiosity about why man does what he does.
• be emotionally truthful in your writing.
• be comfortable staying in a state of uncertainty.
• be willing to accept whatever comes as your story unfolds.
• be willing to take risks and fail.

Here are examples of some of the writing exercises we did.

• Picture a porch—list everything that comes to mind as you think of this porch. Review the list and then incorporate some of the items on the list into your writing.
• Picture a room—list all of the objects you “see” in this room. Again, review the list and include the important objects into your writing. Remember to include the emotions that these objects evoke.
• List ten people—go back and write at least three sensory images for each of those people. Choose one of the people and write about that person developing the sensory images.

After we finished each of these writing exercises, people read their pieces on a voluntary basis. It was amazing how much we learned about each person from his writing. The writing was so revealing because the participants took Dubus to heart and were very honest with their emotions.

I don’t think any of us experienced writer’s block. In fact, the vast majority of people had a difficult time stopping when it was time.