Writing class

Following yesterday’s drawing class, today I sat down for a writing class. I began with some grammar practice from Strunk & White, then wrote some (bad) limericks and two okay (if slightly facile) poems based on phrases I plucked from books:

A really sharp harmonic jolt
4/8/09

I was riding the music train
It gave a really sharp harmonic jolt
I was thrown against a chord
And it fell
Made an accidental
Became a discord

But the train went on
I got up and apologized
Harmony restored

Howling about the gate house
4/8/09

A cat was yowling last night
Prowling
Howling about the gate house

I got up and opened the door
The wind came in and so
Did the cat

It shared my tea
My warm fire
And when I went to bed
The cat came with me

Now no one howled
But the wind

The time dragged on. I did some sensory clustering practice, and then took a break. When I returned, I wrote a little something as a possible submission for The Sun‘s “Readers Write” section; it came out okay, but needs more work. By this time I was totally worn out and I had only been writing for an hour and forty minutes. I guess when I’m drawing, I can free-draw for a rest, but my morning pages are my free-writing, so I don’t have the same respite at hand for writing. So I just gave up and left it at that. Next time I will try longer exercises.

So those are my classes for the week. They’ve been fun, and I look forward to repeating them next week.

In other news, I really need to get some good sharp scissors, because Xacto-ing is killing my wrists. I’m already doing more wrist stretches than usual because of the drawing and writing (on top of the cutting), but I’ll need to really up the ante if I want to keep up this work rate without having my wrists give out on me altogether.