21 February 2008

Doing writing exercises

As it turns out, my daily routine in Orlando is consisting more of evening sightseeing and less of writing. I took my weekday evenings to venture out to a nearby mall (to buy lace-trim footless tights, another favorite item of Sarah's), do souvenir shopping at Downtown Disney, and cruise International Drive.

I did, nevertheless, manage to flip through Fruitflesh and start a very intriguing exercise - writing my own creation legend. The point of the exercise is to better visualize my purpose in the world, much like in the traditions of various cultures of the world and their creation legends. Although the Bible's story of six days of creation, culminating in Adam and Eve, is the best-known legend of all, every culture has its own take on creation, and now it's my turn to write my own.

I am incorporating my personal religious beliefs, plus some of the existing traditions of some non-Western cultures, to craft a story of my coming into the world, and its very purpose. It will not only ground me better in this world, but ground Sarah and Kirsten better as well, since gender and sexuality are definitely being explained here.

Once I am done with this exercise, I will go further into Fruitflesh and work on another. I don't think I will have time to work on more than two exercises during my busy week (which is already more than halfway gone), however.

But it's great to be able to work on these exercises at all, to enrich myself and further ground myself and my novel. A public thanks to Gayle is in order, for writing Fruitflesh.

2 comments:

gayle said...

I'm so delighted that you're working with Fruitflesh, Rachel. I look forward to reading your creation story!

xo
gayle

Rachel said...

Gayle,

I will email the story to you, along with the other exercise I do here in Orlando, when I arrive back in California.

Thanks as always!

Rach