Writing from the Senses: 59 Exercises to Ignite Creativity and Revitalize Your Writing

by Laura Deutsch

Overview

Break through writer's block using your five senses!
The sensory details that infuse our everyday experience—the smell of a favorite dish cooking, the texture of a well-worn coat, hearing a song that reminds you of a person or a time in your life—can be used to add richness and spark to what we write. Whether you are a professional writer (or want to be one) or someone who enjoys just writing for your own personal fulfillment, Writing from the Senses will show you how to tap into an endless source of engaging material, using your senses as prompts. The exercises will stimulate you to develop stories, imagery, and details that will allow readers to see, taste, hear, smell, and feel that they're in the scene.

Writing from the Senses
•Provides 60 prompts and creative writing exercises organized by sense;
•Presents engaging narratives, personal essays, and instruction to entertain and inform readers and illustrate the effectiveness of each exercise;
•Helps writers recognize the sensory prompts that surround them daily and use them to trigger their individual stories; and
•Shows how freewrites from the prompts in this book can result in publishable pieces.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611800449
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	05/13/2014
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	487,027
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

LAURA DEUTSCH is a writer, editor, and teacher based in Mill Valley, California. She has taught classes and has given workshops in many venues over the years, including the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State University, Book Passage bookstore, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, and in Arezzo, Italy. Her personal essays, feature stories, and travel pieces have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, and her personal essays have been anthologized in several collections.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Part 1 Sight 9

1 You Ought to Be in Pictures 11

2 Seeing Is Believing 17

3 The Palette of Place 22

4 Local Color 26

5 Our Homes, Ourselves 29

6 Drawing Home 34

7 Let There Be Light 37

8 Art Scene 42

9 Writing on the Road 46

10 Playing with a Full Deck 50

Part 2 Sound 55

11 The Sounds of My Childhood 57

12 Wherever Music Takes You 60

13 Sounds of the City 63

14 Bird Talk 67

15 Voices without Words 69

16 My Body Is My Instrument 72

17 He Said, She Said 75

18 Chants Encounter 78

19 At Water's Edge 81

20 The Sound of Silence 86

Part 3 Smell 91

21 Rose in Bloom 93

22 Three-Note Harmony 95

23 Cleopatra Isn't Welcome Here 97

24 Odors of Time and Place 101

25 Scents of the Season 104

26 Bridging Smell and Taste 107

Part 4 Taste 111

27 Cooking Lessons 113

28 Kitchen Aids 118

29 Savoring Life, One Bite at a Time 124

30 The Bounty of the Season 126

31 A Slice of Life 130

32 Mindful Eating 132

33 Olio Nuovo 136

Part 5 Touch 139

34 Hothouse Flower 141

35 Fashionistas 145

36 Clay Idylls 150

37 Kiss and Tell 153

38 Fabricating Stories 157

39 Corporal Punishment 160

40 Sybaritic in Sonoma 162

41 The Bittersweet Hereafter 166

Part 6 A Symphony of Senses 173

42 Oh My Darlin' Clementine 175

43 Sentimental Journey 178

44 Mood Ring 182

45 In the Garden 185

46 Victoria's Secret 191

47 Altars and Rituals 194

48 Succulence 200

Part 7 Motion 205

49 Actions Speak Louder Than Words 207

50 Verbs in Motion 210

51 Shall We Dance? 213

52 Horseplay 218

53 Wrapped Attention 227

54 Water, Water Everywhere 232

55 In a Heartbeat 234

Part 8 Reworking Your Material 237

56 A New Way to Say It 239

57 Composting 241

58 Editing and Polishing 243

59 Disrobing in a Public Place 251

The Sixth Sense 252

Resources 253

Credits 255

Editorial Reviews

"Laura Deutsch shares the secret of great writing, which comes from awakening and enlisting the senses. Writing from the Senses is filled with fresh ideas and powerful examples of evocative writing that are sure to inspire both emerging and veteran writers."—Lavinia Spalding, author of Writing Away

From the Publisher