tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13725299455740367492024-03-05T06:15:57.872-05:00Exercise Your WritingA. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-46620524594090431852010-09-03T07:07:00.000-04:002010-09-03T07:07:06.013-04:00How is it I've never seen this site before: <a href="http://bookshelfporn.com/archive">http://bookshelfporn.com/archive</a> ... write about someone's bookshelf, real or imagined...A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-6870865525008815962010-08-27T08:39:00.000-04:002010-08-27T08:39:17.253-04:00Check out these <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/arnade/sets/72157624129454611/with/4690853207/">photos of people reading in public.</a> A couple of days this week, read different books in public. See how many people talk to you. Write about those conversations.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-67015080774725502402010-08-25T12:56:00.000-04:002010-08-25T12:56:56.425-04:00In the spring the much celebrated (and deservedly so) Gary Shteyngart will be coming to Boca to read at the MELUS conference hosted by FAU. His book trailer for his current bestselling novel, Super Sad True Love Story, is one of the best I've seen. You'll notice the cameo by James Franco...and if you've read any of Franco's stories or followed his recent artistry, you'll notice he likes to play with the idea of himself as a character. So watch Shteyngart's trailer and then write something with James Franco in it.<br />
<br />
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EfzuOu4UIOU?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EfzuOu4UIOU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-7928856604811082982010-06-04T07:53:00.000-04:002010-06-04T08:31:55.531-04:00So I'm a big fan of "So You Think You Can Dance" (the good dancing, not the sad bad dancers) and my favorite dancer this season is former Miami City Ballet soloist (locals should definitely seek out this troupe's performances) Alex Wong. Apparently during downtime for rehearsals and backstage during performances, he and his friends make videos of cheesy choreography that they come up with just for fun:<br /><br /><a href="http://thewinger.com/2010/dancers-gone-haywire-2/">Dancers gone Haywire</a><br /><br />On your downtime, write something playful, just for fun.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-50349110184918132012010-05-22T11:34:00.000-04:002010-05-22T11:39:34.037-04:00My good friend Oliver de la Paz has a chapbook of poems in the latest Black Warrior Review and one of the things that "groups" the poems is the tone created by certain romantic words--susurrus, sepulchre, lupine, wisteria, trellis, sulfur, orchid, spindrift and my favorite ox-eye daisy. I haven't seen him do it but I suspect he collects words like that..<br /><br />Keep a list of words. Or more than one list even.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-70681796921141629092010-05-20T16:57:00.001-04:002010-05-20T16:58:35.315-04:00Happily, The Books have a new album coming out in July: <a href="http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/14244-beautiful-people/">http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/14244-beautiful-people/</a><br /><br />Write something with reverb.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-6275680828133962512010-04-30T06:49:00.001-04:002010-04-30T06:56:34.490-04:00A lot of writers of my acquaintance have a childhood love of dollhouses and dioramas (I still remember my diorama for an eighth grade book report on <em></em>In Cold Blood<em></em> ... yes, it was of the Clutters' house on the night they got murdered--and my report was a first person account of the murders by one of the killers which I delivered in some kind of drawl.) Anyway...I've mentioned Elsa Mora's blogs before--she now has a <a href="http://elsita.typepad.com/dolls-have-feelings-too/">doll one</a>--which very much led me to want to make doll versions of all my stories. Make some kind of visual representation of what you're writing.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-79739941448573471942010-04-25T14:51:00.001-04:002010-04-25T14:55:55.186-04:00Here is Franz Kafka's story "The Sirens" in its entirety:<br />(translated by Clement Greenberg)<br /><br />"These are the seductive voices of the night; the Sirens, too, sang that way. It would be doing them an injustice to think that they wanted to seduce; they knew they had claws and sterile wombs, and they lamented this aloud. They could not help it if their laments sounded so beautiful."<br /><br />Notice how the first sentence defines something. The second sentence questions that defintion. The third sentence redefines it. Notice, too, how his use of "too" changes what the story appears to be about (what are the "these" if not the Sirens?).<br /><br />Write your own three sentence story.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-23245101285578700972010-04-25T13:31:00.001-04:002010-04-25T13:34:01.683-04:00Time to make your plan for summer. One thing you will read. One thing you will write. (let's just go with one at a time, okay?)<br /><br /><object width="400" height="225"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8522157&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8522157&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/8522157">Josh Rouse - I Will live on Islands... - A Take Away Show</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/blogotheque">La Blogotheque</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-15804575347961497272010-04-25T13:17:00.000-04:002010-04-30T06:57:50.792-04:00This week <em>The New Yorker </em>has an <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/01/14/080114fi_fiction_doctorow">E.L. Doctorow story</a> that is all dialogue and <em>The Atlantic </em>has a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/08/the-silence/8040/">T.C. Boyle</a> story that has (almost) no dialogue (the characters are on a vow of silence). Read both. Then take a story that you intended to write with the traditional mix of dialogue and not and write it first with all dialogue and then with no dialogue. Try to make both versions work. Now you have two stories instead of one. Who says that the style can't be the thing that makes them different stories? Nobody, that's who.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-66954731392051877902010-04-17T11:01:00.001-04:002010-04-17T11:02:39.288-04:00Take a look at these <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/04/15/books/20100415-timelines-ss_index.html">samples</a> from the book <em>Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline</em>. Then write your own timeline.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-7746622585932173352010-04-17T10:57:00.000-04:002010-04-17T10:59:15.476-04:00Apparently in Japan there is a DVD of girls crying as they tell their stories. Its title is 11 Stories of Girls Crying in a Genuine Way. Write something, doesn't have to be the obvious, with that title.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-2645651687393917852010-03-26T07:22:00.000-04:002010-03-26T07:53:16.065-04:00This seems to be everybody's favorite video nowadays and a Rube Goldberg machine (I love that's still a household word) isn't a bad metaphor for how many narratives operate ...one thing leads to another ... but what I notice watching the machine in action is how quickly one thing leads to another and just how many cause-effect sequences there are. So write something in which one thing leads to another super-fast and many times over.<br /><br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qybUFnY7Y8w&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qybUFnY7Y8w&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />Then try writing something in which one thing leads to many things most of which lead nowhere, as in <a href="http://www.robbio.i12.com/Maze/index.htm"><em>The Maze </em></a>.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-49440821032746566772010-02-06T12:00:00.000-05:002010-02-06T12:04:35.489-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjALawEaOiA_HKWJJX-dAShj8Oy8HgCtlZ7SPWV3MTpcQQgK1AmveLn6k9VBmbh2GY19UI0IBadQDonEAWyxsxQSP1GYMuFs_rSdtnYMDDO9TvA-QoJ4vzlfQYY8H5cLJKHIVtDmnalGPAr/s1600-h/Snow+Feb+6+2010.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjALawEaOiA_HKWJJX-dAShj8Oy8HgCtlZ7SPWV3MTpcQQgK1AmveLn6k9VBmbh2GY19UI0IBadQDonEAWyxsxQSP1GYMuFs_rSdtnYMDDO9TvA-QoJ4vzlfQYY8H5cLJKHIVtDmnalGPAr/s320/Snow+Feb+6+2010.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435176655391033298" /></a><br />This is the view out my parents' dining room window this morning. The advantage of being snowed in is you can't go anywhere so suddenly you get all kinds of things done at home. Treat your writing like that. You're snowed in. You can't go anywhere. You might as well write.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-8249427039060903372010-01-27T09:03:00.000-05:002010-01-27T09:04:53.387-05:00I found these <a href="http://unhappyhipsters.tumblr.com/">fake captions </a>of Dwell magazine photos really amusing. Write a story by captioning found pictures or write an essay by captioning your own photographs.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-36328267938636811072009-11-14T09:39:00.000-05:002009-11-14T09:45:25.974-05:00My favorite shop (non-Internet variety), Anthropologie has started an artist's blog which is kind of interesting. One of the first entries is from Jane Campion, director of the recent Keats film <em>Bright Star</em>. It made me think about how filmmakers have location scouts and take all kind of <a href="http://theanthropologist.net/#/JaneCampion/BrightStarMovie/LocationPictures">photographs</a> to record the location.<br /><br />Go location scouting for a piece of writing. Take pictures. Then write.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-78985575898802007932009-11-12T06:46:00.000-05:002009-11-12T06:47:33.457-05:00<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QDWlMX2ToSc&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QDWlMX2ToSc&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Write your own "How to Not to Write About [insert your own literary cliche here]" essay.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-77694089761027176462009-11-10T19:44:00.001-05:002009-11-10T19:44:59.293-05:00Write a piece with a lot of percussion in it.<br /><br /><object width="400" height="225"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6951147&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6951147&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/6951147">White Rabbits - Percussion Gun - A Take Away Show</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/blogotheque">La Blogotheque</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-29065017363419837912009-09-26T07:50:00.001-04:002009-09-26T07:56:02.837-04:00In one of today's NYT book reviews there is a line about a Times Literary Supplement assignment one writer received: write an essay of less than 1200 words with no restrictions except it must spill a drop of blood. Try it. (metaphorical blood, please)A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-36215703406993972832009-09-26T07:47:00.000-04:002009-09-26T07:50:16.308-04:00I have the great pleasure of working with my friends and last night many of them demonstrated exceptional good-sportmanship in participating in our graduate student event, the Faculty Juvenilia reading. In celebration of the sincerity and intensity of what we believe in our youth...write something in the voice of a fourteen year old. Not smart, ironic, or smartass. Sincere.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-3532609737183917772009-09-16T07:31:00.000-04:002009-09-16T07:33:10.529-04:00Dan Chaon has a new novel out and <a href="http://www.last.fm/user/chaon/library/playlists/2xwuk_%2522await_your_reply%2522__soundtrack">here</a> is the playlist he listened to as he wrote it. Create a playlist for a piece you haven't written yet. Then go write the piece.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-60919591235379109872009-09-11T08:33:00.001-04:002009-09-11T08:34:10.555-04:00I am a tidy person at heart, but I love pictures like <a href="http://www.richardhellergallery.com/dynamic/artwork_display.asp?ArtworkID=1494">this </a>in which there are a gazillion things to look at. Write a piece of prose in which there are a gazillion things to look at.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-28352928115369029712009-09-05T10:57:00.000-04:002009-09-05T10:59:42.813-04:00Artist Kate Bingaman-Burt makes <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kateconsumption/sets/72157621800588513/">drawings</a> of everything she buys. Write a mini essay somehow illustrating everything you bought yesterday (whatever day yesterday is for you). And I do mean everything. No cheating.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-86385655046728957792009-08-25T18:27:00.001-04:002009-08-25T18:28:07.771-04:00It is a quirk of my personal taste that I really love pictures of <a href="http://www.richardhellergallery.com/dynamic/artwork_display.asp?ArtworkID=915">people with animal heads</a>. Write about someone with an animal head.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1372529945574036749.post-70282819444577857192009-08-19T13:52:00.000-04:002009-08-19T13:56:07.024-04:00I'm a big fan of Elsa Mora's papercuts (and all three of her <a href="http://www.elsita.typepad.com/">blogs</a>, really). Check out this <a href="http://elsita.typepad.com/photos/paper_sculptures/8.html">one</a> in particular. And maybe this <a href="http://elsita.typepad.com/photos/paper_sculptures/girl_copy_2.html">one</a> too. And then take a one page piece of writing and cut it into something.A. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.com0