Example Journal – Creative Writing Brainstorming Exercise
JE#1- l connected immediately with the parson because of his analytical nature. Unlike the other characters he did not take things as they came – he instead took a less optimistic perspective and discounted the quick fix so to speak as ineffective at best and recommended a different course of action through penitence. He acted smarter and significantly more cautious – two very important qualities.
JE#2 – We would be on a journey to Denver, Colorado. First of all is the punk – a raunchy skater with a bawdy sense of humor. He, as you would expect, would spend his time at the skateparks. He would eat fast food, sleep cheap, and in traditional style have a skateboard in one hand and his duffel in the other. Not that I would have any experience with this. Next would be the elder gentleman with a short temper and an everlasting dirty look. This man would be on vacation – most likely with his wife – and he definitely would rather be at home right now. Throughout the course of the trip he may enjoy himself, but he will not show it. Next, the college student: smart, aware, and generally a good kid. He knows a lot about his selected major, we’ll say engineering, and he has brought a laptop along to facilitate his reading. Finally there is the middle-aged single man. He’s had a lot of fun, and been in the same position as the college student, but now he’s middle aged, sarcastic, and gaining weight; perhaps he may know how to have fun still, but it’s hard to decide at this point. As they all pile in to the elder gentleman’s venerable VW bus and head to Denver, they can’t help but think that this trip will be exciting. The bus leaves as the middle-aged man and the skater exchange low blows using the best irony.
JE#3 – I would have been a serf because it seems the most exciting position. We have the money and all we have to do is live the simple life. We can move up, but we really don’t have much to lose.
JE#4 – I agree with Ernest. Anyone unable to comprehend the most basic aspects of grammar and punctuation is already severely limited in their capabilities, so any type of extra credit seems completely ludicrous. Once you are able to write a paper that would meet the harshest grammatical standards, you can then be allowed to rewrite the rules in a more stylistic manner. Any writing that flows well is always acceptable, however an integral understanding of the ways of t he language is required in order to effectively author such a document.
JE#5 – When I wake up, I know instantly how much sleep I got the previous night – if i’m very tired, i got 6-7 or more than 10 hours to sleep. Otherwise I got less than 6 or 7-10.
JE#6 – I’ll be just fine, pretending I’m not. I’m far from lonely and it’s all that I’ve got. Indie emo is about the third most phenomenal music ever. The Used happens to have some screaming in there, but screamo is good too. In fact, almost all indie music is good – bands like Death Cab for Cutie and the Blood Brothers – but not all emo music is good – bands like And Then I Turned Seven and Cute is What We Aim For (even though their name ends with a preposition). Some emo bands are in denial they’re emo, but indie is more of a snobbish-type thing – people like to say that they are indie. People like me. Emo, however, isfrequently made attacked, so many emoists find themselves contained to the closet, coming outside only in fair weather. I’m sad today, but I’m not sure why.
JE#7 – A report over something you’ve learned, if it is written well, provides an opportunity for everyone to learn a little. If it is written poorly, information must be extracted in the same manner that a dentist extracts teeth from a mouth. Some people write in the second style their entire life and never have any desire to improve because in their own minds they are good writers. For them, writing is not a learning process at all – merely something they have to do to prove that they know whatever it is that they have learned. The alternative is to write as well as you can, improving with every word. Every time writers such as myself learn a new word, we love to incorporate it into our next piece, and we are willing to do what it takes to get that word in there. We have transcended the basic rules of grammar and punctuation to achieve a level of writing nirvana: all writing is very stylistic using all or none of the rules of grammar as we see fit, and incorporating literary devices such as allusions and allegories and (evidently) alliterations.
JE#8 – We decided to leave today. I wanted to stay because I know the house will be fine, and if it isn’t, I don’t know whether I want to come back or not. We didn’t even have time to pack up all our posessions. We threw the clothes we could fit in all the suitcases and duffel bags I could find. We all piled into the car and left by way of the highway, and the traffic was so bad on the evacuation routes I knew if the tornado made it to land that day it wouldn’t matter whether we had left or not.
JE#9 – I’d be in Slytherin because that sounds like the most fun. They seem to be the pranksters so to speak, and not all of their fun is good and clean. Underneath their poor reputation, it sounds like a lot of the more alternative kids; the skaters so to speak.
JE#10 – Being sick is not a pretty feeling, however I’ve noticed that after I throw up (multiple times if necessary), I tend to feel a lot better. Yesterday, for example, I had to deposit about nine separate groups in the sink at a friend’s house. After my final episode, I began to feel better and I noticed that I stopped feeling sick after about five minutes. Eating food and drinking water made a big difference, as did the mental part – repeatedly telling myself that I had thrown up all that I could and that I was about to get better made me feel much less sick. Eventually, my friend told me we had to go and helped me to my car. I opened the door. I sat down. I looked up. I was good. I felt much better at this point, and off we went! We went to Shawnee Mission Park for a theater function that us and many other people could have sworn started at six o’clock, but evidently was happening right after school. We drove around and looked, talked to a park ranger, and eventually left. I took him home, took myself home, and went to sleep after eating three (and eventually a fourth) oreos. Yesterday was a fun day, and today I woke up with the most hellish taste in my mouth you can imagine.
JE#12 – I’ve always been partial to fiction, and as a result I’ve become quite interested in plays and shows. Most recently, however, i’ve been a fan of nonfiction in the form of technical writings about Cisco routers and UNIX systems administration and Flash and PHP. I’ve decided that my imagination is providing quite well for itself, and directing my eyes to more technical and higher level writings is not only improving my formal writing skills but also my web design skills.
JE #13 – So them RX-7’s sure are nice cars. It’s nice to be driving an rx-7 again as of a month ago today. Anyway, this is about Old Settlers and the many subcultures of suburban Olathe. Last night, I had to go out to eat with my grandparents for my uncle’s birthday, which was a lot of fun, but I was more interested in making an appearance at Old Settlers. Eventually I made it, and immediately found some fellow skaters standing in front of the 9-stair by the courthouse. Every year since about 8th grade Old Settlers has been a chance for me to go and show off the fact that I’m a skater. Ever since 9th grade I’ve gone because I can get away with skating the stairs. And to show off. The question is why are any (all) of us interested in that? We are generally the quiet kids that stay out of the spotlight, being social only at the skatepark. For some reason, this city-wide event makes us all more social. Perhaps it seems “safer” so to speak – everyone’s in a good mood and nice. Like a little town. In the ’50’s .
JE #14 – The media’s coverage is about a six on the richter scale. I didn’t really see much of it because my working, skating, and extensive homework take priority to television, which I try to avoid anyway. Included information that I saw covered financial losses and displacement, but failed to cover martial law effectively. I learned that the federal government alone has accumulated three hundred billion dollars through FEMA and other emergency management/relief organizations – almost three hundred thousand dollars per individual, and probably close to a million dollars per capita, but the news failed to mention any more details on the specifics of how this one thousand dollars per US resident was being spent. I saw a lot of interviews, some with national guardsmen, some with residents, and even more with police and other military personell, but none of these were very informative as they all said roughly the same thing – the military and national guard have instituted a form of martial law and are now evacuating the entire affected area, no questions asked. The citizens all said something along the lines of “today came with shattered dreams, everything’s not what it seems,” and I seem to have missed all the details about relocation and what the government plans to do in regard to rebuilding the city. The answers I have leave me with nothing but more questions.
JE #15 – Today we’ll talk about JC Denton’s favorite food. I used to work with a guy named JC, but he got fired last week so in honor of him, we’ll go with JC Denton, star of the Deus Ex series of computer games. Being almost completely mechanized (a generation II mech, though, so he looks human), JC and his older brother paul most likely don’t require much to eat besides chips. he seems like the type of person that would be into the barbecued variety, but it is also possible that he is a salt and vinegar fan. Throughout the game, however, the only food we see him consume is candy bars, which are a nice snack but hardly enough to live on, so our chips decision remains accurate. Good night.
JE #16 – Back in the day it was somewhat of a chore to print pictures as anything more than ascii art. The six-column layout provided a uniform look while still maintaining an element of readability. The pseudo-graphical heading adds a nice artistic touch as well.
JE #17 – This looks like a math teacher love poem. Let x be me, let y be you. Until that point, there is no indication of the real theme of the poem, but all lines (once the real meaning is discovered) add to the mathematical sweetness. My writing today is horrible because I’m tired, and rather random as well. The last line of this poem is a switch of sorts where the theme surfaces and the meaning of the poem becomes obvious.
JE#18
I am the Bell
Stationary, shiny, tall, thin
Naked, colored, empty, plain
I sleep alone in solemn peace
Till awakened…….
In a dark white box I sit like a stone
Untouched, forgot, unmissed, alone
No company to keep until I rot
A bug, a mite, some mold perhaps
Will visit me when
JE#19
My plastic feet don’t walk so well
My dragon breath has gone to hell
My hands are stuck
My neck is fat
My arms are sore
My feet are flat
I wish I may I wish I might
Foam Chiefs Football
Plastic laces, foam inside
Black cloth stiching, lots of pride
Small but bold
Fading red
I sit alone, unused, dklfgkdfjg
JE#20
Lollipop lollipop
Oh lolly, lolly, lollipop
cinammon cherry strawberry red
making lollipop visions inside my head
you’re going the distance
Pointy and sharp and goofily shaped
and goofy and weird and shiny and curvy
Israelean books in arabic type
swahili iberia norway and skype
bendy and curvy and crazy and weak
come keep my page and hurry to be sheik
JE#21
My face is yellow and my body is red
My insides are empty my neck is springy
Go to the store and buy some pez
Tily back my head and
Derive from me an integer for limiting your regression
The greatest common multiple of an imaginary conjecture
Can be combined with the permutation of the factorial of the median
Now I feel so empty inside
so fill me up and let me go
Fill me up and join the ride
Tilt back my head and let my insides flow