Writing Exercises
To stimulate the R-complex
(the "reptilian brain", the oldest parts of our brain, which regulate
repetitive functions - like heart rate and breathing - and repetitive dysfunctions
- like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), write a lipogram. That's text that
excludes a specific letter. The classic challenge is a composition in which
the letter "e" never appears. The iguana in you will adore this,
because it's an exercise that's territorial, ritualistic, repetitious and
domineering. In an essay anthologized in Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature,
Georges Perec, an experimental author of the mid-20th century, notes that
"the lipogram is the oldest systematic artifice of western literature."
Ideal for the 280 million-year-old R-complex!
[I'm a lizard lord. You, too.
This is our day. All that stands in our way is warm and fuzzy thinking.
Historical authority arrays its might at our back: war, domination, control!
Humanity is ours! Psychology can't stop us. Laws that prohibit fulfilling
our vision of world submission shall fall to our dragon claws and muscular
jaws. Only wisdom and compassion - classically stupid functions of a soft
mind - block our unfolding program. Lizard lords, now is our opportunity
for maximum satisfaction and consummation of all our ambitions! Forward!]
Our mammalian legacy of complex
emotions - like love, indignation, compassion, envy and hope - resides in
our limbic brain, which responds to grooming. Edit another writer's text.
Take a few paragraphs of a work you admire and rewrite them. If there are
any ticks that trouble the text, remove them. If the text is just fine,
then stroke it: see if synonyms work as well, and you'll probably appreciate
better the fidelity of the original. Affectionately touch this work that
evokes such strong emotion in you. Notice how it responds to your touch,
how its feeling tone changes with your changes and how those changes change
you.
[Eighty-seven years ago, our
forebears established in this land a fresh approach to governance, conceptualized
in freedom and committed to the concept of equality for all people.]
For sheer yinsanity, exert
the neocortex by writing something exclusively imaginary. Get as far away
from reality as you can. In fact, tear reality apart. In this exercise,
creativity is the lion's paw and reality the scurrying antelope. Like the
antelope, reality is in plain view. (At least, consensus reality is, and
that's what we're referring to here.) Where is the lion? The lion is where
we aren't. You can't find it. When it's hungry enough, it will find you. |