Now that I have other projects out the way, I'm redeveloping the blog a little in terms of content - I have a tendency to write lengthy posts, and they take up a lot of the time that I'm supposed to be using for writing. So, in the interests of snatching some of that time back and introducing more variety to the blog, I'm bringing in some new concepts for some of the regular posts.

One of them is writing games - tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

Random Objects

It's a simple game: look around you, right now, and take six to ten objects. Try to make them mostly unrelated; if you're in an office, look out the window as well, or in the fridge, on your coworker's desk, open a book to a random page and take the first noun you find. Six to ten objects.

Now put them in a story - and not as background fodder, make these objects integral to the story - the stapler is the reason someone got fired; the chocolate body paint in the fridge is somebody's lunch (true story, that). They can't all be the MacGuffin, obviously, but at least one of them has to be central to the plot.

The point is to make your brain stretch for how someone could get fired over a stapler, what kind of colleague would enjoy chocolate body paint on toast.