Steering the Craft [draft post]
I haven’t much been in the mood for writing personal essays, but I have been writing a lot of fiction. Below are my exercises out of Ursula K. Le Guin's Steeing the Craft:
EXERCISE ONE: Being Gorgeous
Part One: Write a paragraph to a page of narrative that’s meant to be read aloud. Use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects, made-up words or names, dialect—any kind of sound effect you like—but NOT rhyme or meter.
In the end it was the city itself which seduced her, with its rat-ka-tak rumble of the train rushing ruthlessly from an indeterminate point in the past to an equally indeterminate point in the future, full-bodied and monstrously heaving its metal over the wickedly and strictly straight tracks. The scale of the whole ordeal was alluringly intimidating, like a stranger looming wholesale over her in some rancid alleyway whose utter nothingness took on a glimmer of intrigue for no particular reason other than the way the loose change of light caught in his eyes and sharpened and deepened them beyond all reason, feline and undead wrapped with tapetum lucidum all turquoise and blacker than black. A wrong step truthfully could have killed her. To die in the arms of the city she felt was a charming sort of death like to be claimed as one of the many masses buried in the catacombs under the park the grass guiltily bulging like a convex meniscus or the swollen flesh of the unfound long dead.
Part Two: In a paragraph or so, describe an action, or a person feeling strong emotion—joy, fear, grief. Try to make the rhythm and movement of the sentences embody or represent the physical reality you’re writing about.
Clack of her heels on the concrete and the excruciating cry which ripped itself forcefully through her—oh god! Oh god! Ocean waves slapping down upon themselves. A kind of goring. First in the chest, then radiating infinitely outwards, piercing the gut and throat, and to be nailed to the cross instead would have been a mercy. To love and have lost. Lost, lost: too small and weak a vessel for the sensation of being utterly torn asunder to which she submitted wholly. Turning the corner to a street that looked just like every other street, the world collapsing into itself to make space for the strike through the heart which bled radioactively red in the night, larger than anything that had come before and perhaps would ever come yet. A wound then wounding itself, promising no end and only sensation hissing a high pitched whine like a knife sharpening against pure light.
EXERCISE TWO: Am I Saramago
Write a paragraph to a page (150–350 words) of narrative with no punctuation (and no paragraphs or other breaking devices).
Look I said now you just look here and listen he stared at me with those hungry eyes big as dinner plates as long as I’m alive you’re never alone you hear me you hear that he blinked slow like a deer in headlights I watched the words slowly mush through him the barest ray of recognition warming his face I ain’t much but you got me you hear and if you got me you got everything I got you got everything I can do for you and you listen here I’m not saying it’s a great bargain it may be the shittiest bargain you’ve ever heard the shittiest bargain of the century even but I promise I ain’t going nowhere you hear you can count on that even when you can’t count on anything else and it really did start to seem like he heard and I watched the little smile carve itself across his face and the light start to catch real sweet in his eyes which is why it was such a goddamn surprise when I felt the thud against my chest and the cli-clack of the safety and I looked down and saw that gun I thought he threw away back near Tallahassee and putting my hands up real slow I thought well Jesus fuck there’s only so long you can keep the hunger at bay can’t you and what a damn crying shame to go out this way after all that
EXERCISE THREE: Short and Long
Part One: Write a paragraph of narrative, 100–150 words, in sentences of seven or fewer words. No sentence fragments! Each must have a subject and a verb.
He was terribly tired. Nothing sang inside him. Belinda wasn’t answering his texts. Tapping on the screen he sighed. He watched—nothing. The clock ticked; the rain poured. Just beyond the window the city drowsed. What had he done? He didn’t know. He—well—maybe he did. He didn’t want to know. The thing ate. Black curdled in his gut. Anger suited her, as guilt suited him. Wasn’t this how it went? Turn away he did. He always did. Percocet lay on the counter. Half glass of brandy he held. Unlovely cocktail wasn’t it. The flowers wilted. She had a favorite florist. Sick like a dog he couldn’t. He just couldn’t; he didn’t know. Thumb hovered over the call button. He tapped; the call dropped. Blocked his number did she. James you’re just like your father. Miserably he dropped the phone. Almost underwater he heard the thud.
Part Two: Write a half page to a page of narrative, up to 350 words, that is all one sentence.
James you absolute bastard, she thought, furiously scrubbing clean the burnt Chicken Marengo from the Dutch Oven so wonderfully lavender; he unlike all the other men she dated had a sensibility for that kind of thing, pleasant colors in dishware, she meant; but now she was getting distracted from the matter at hand, which was concocting eviscerating diatribes against him in her mind as she cleaned the pot; and it was such a shame that—oh god the water so scalding turn it down turn it down now that’s a bit better—oh it was such a shame that they had gotten into that spat while the chicken was simmering because it was going to be such a lovely dinner, yes, such a lovely dinner indeed, but now she was cleaning gluey burnt caramelized onion off the bottom of the pan with a vigor usually reserved for running with Yam and James in the park on glorious dewy May mornings—and oh Belinda focus—it was such a shame because he had been doing so well, going to all the meetings and doing all the steps and they had really truly been talking about the family thing again but he had started doing all the sneaking around and the empty Smirnoff in the bottom of the recycling and she just—she wanted—oh, she didn’t—she turned off the tap—the tears dripping into the soapy bath of water in the sink—she just thought it was going to be different this time—and maybe that was her fault—and she couldn’t stand to hear her phone going off like that, not right now, and clumsily she slammed the block button wet handed and terribly, terribly tired.