Writers On The Move: seven senses and writing

: Writing Better Lyrics by Pat Pattison

"Use Seven Senses to Spark Your Writing" by Joan Y. Edwards

In learning how to write better song lyrics for the musical movie I am writing, I ordered about 6 books about how to write or improve your writing of lyrics from the library. Much to my surprise, when I read Writing Better Lyrics by Pat Pattison, I was amazed that he gave his readers exercises that would not only improve the writing of lyrics, but any kind of creative writing, you might pursue.

He suggests that for ten minutes - only ten minutes a day - not a minute longer to do an Object exercise.
Use seven senses: (There may be more, but Pat Pattison only emphasized seven)

Sight- What you see and what it looks like
Hearing - What you hear with your ears and what it sounds like.
Taste - What you taste and what it tastes like.
Smell - What you smell and what it smells like.
Touch - What you touch and what it feels like: hot, cold, prickly, smooth.
Inside Body Functions (Organic) - Your awareness of inner bodily functions. For example: heartbeat, pulse, muscle tension, stomach-aches, cramps, nausea, and breathing, pain, poisons. Concerns the movement and function of the physical organs insights and senses inside your body.
Kinesthetic - Sense of motion, speed of motion, balance, gravity. Use of the body to do something or create something, to move.

For ten minutes you write freely. The only thing is you write sentences or phrases about the object. Tell something you remember about this object. Show us in as many ways as you can. Use your senses. Make it personal to you or write as a character in a story. You are free to include who, what, when, where, why, and how to your writing during the exercise. I think it would be a good idea to read over the different senses described here before you begin to write.

Pattison says that each time you do it, you'll dive deeper into your subconscious mind and get all those treasured word jewels hiding out in there. Each time you do it, you'll get more relaxed and able to dive down sooner than you did the last time. You can pretend you are a character seeing or using this object.

Pattison says not to spend longer than ten minutes a day doing this. He warns that people stop because they say it takes too long when they spend more than ten minutes. Or they say, I did 30 minutes today. I can skip Thursday and Friday. When you do it regularly, you reap the benefits.

I'm going to put a word here: SALT. I'd like for you to share what you wrote about it during your ten minute exercise as a comment. If you don't want to share your writing, just tell me how and why you think this will lead you to improved writing.

Here are five other words you might like to do a free 10 minute exercise for 5 different days:

sand
clock
concrete
beret
refrigerator

I did a 10-minute writing exercise for the word Salt. I will post it in the comments area. I may not have used all 7 senses, but I had fun writing it. If you like these kind of exercises, let me know. I'll try to dream up or find a few others to try to help us improve our writing.

Celebrate you
Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards
Copyright © 2013 Joan Y. Edwards

Reference:
Pat Pattison. "Writing Better Lyrics:" http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Better-Lyrics-Pat-Pattison/dp/1582975779/