Apple-Obsessed Author Fella

Writing Exercise: Describe One Things Ten Ways

Last week’s challenge: Random Song Challenge

First up: an administrative detail. For those who took part in the Voicemails From The Future challenge — Reggie Lutz, you won a chronofact from the proceedings! Bounce me a message to terribleminds at gmail dot com. Yay!

(Er, edit: I don’t need everyone to write me an email. Just Reggie, thanks!)

Now: onto the challenge.

This week — not a flash fiction challenge so much so much as an experimental writing exercise. I want to do these from time to time just to keep things fresh around here.

So, here’s the drill —

I want you to take one thing and describe it ten different ways.

That thing can be… anything. An object. A person. A sensation. A place. An experience.

But I want you to focus on it and describe it multiple ways. Ten, as noted.

Each no more than a sentence of description.

(Feel free to choose a real world thing. Say, a lamp in your corner, or the flu you had last week.)

Differ your approaches in how you describe this thing.

Try pinballing from abstraction to factual — from metaphorical to forthright.

The goal here is just to flex our descriptive muscles a bit.

An example? After jogging the other day, I had a peculiar feeling in my face and I — as I am wont to do — went through the various ways I might describe this feeling. It was a hot pulsing. Like my heart was in my head. Like I was a goldfish inside an aquarium and some kid was tapping on the glass. Like both the basketball dribbling and the court on which it bounced. This is just a thing I do: I see a person or experience a sensation and I ask: how would I describe that?

Try it out. Pick a thing. Ten different descriptions.

Feel free to do this directly in the comments or at your blog (post a link).

Got till March 7th, noon EST to jump on in.

Go.