Wordsmithing: AUSTIN KLEON writer

Thursday, 15 December 2011

STOLEN: INCLUDING 9 THINGS LEARNED

AUSTIN KLEON:
A WRITER WHO DRAWS

Austin Kleon's book How To Steal Like An Artist is out in March 2012. It is on my to be read list.
I love all things writing, poetical and artistic. Take a look at his website, he weaves words and images with presence.
His poster (which started this off) is amazing, I loved his advice.

What I loved even more than his calendar - which I haven't shown here - was his notebook, which he describes as his Logbook. Austin suggests you set targets but also that you celebrate, in the log, everything you succeed in doing.

The Logbook is not intended to be a conventional diary.

DO YOU KEEP NOTES ON A CALENDAR OR A LOG OF DAILY EVENTS?

RETURN: YA Paranormal Romance

I was running late. But, it was nothing I couldn’t make up with a bit of effort. I shook my head. Confident and happy? I smiled. Increasing my stride, I pushed until the muscles in my legs burned. I kept up the pace even when the hill grew steeper.

Magpie Lane was hardly wider than a ribbon that edged the woods but that didn’t stop traffic using it to get to the motorway quicker. Large trucks and fast cars loved Magpie Lane. They sent vibrations running through me rising from the soles of my trainers. I felt the disturbance in the ground, even before the air pressure tried to knock me off balance. I hunched my shoulders as the cab hauling a container spat stones up at me.

Jogging on the spot, at the entrance to woodland, I ached to leave the road and go inside. My Mum was probably still asleep but I could hear her you-never-know-what might-be-in-there lecture buzzing on repeat inside my head. I should run safe. Not even I would argue that running through the woods on my own was the best definition of safe but I wanted to run-wild and the woodland offered me that. This early, I should be safe from axe murderers or perverts in the trees and besides, I was fast.

I jogged down the slope into the trees. From two paces in, I felt different. Freer. It felt so right. Running in the woods did great things for my style. Avoiding the roots and dodging branches forced my stride longer, I had to step higher. The woodland, The Weald, was only a sliver of ancient woodland that the developers forgot to build on but it felt like it could have been anywhere. Everywhere. At any time. The oaks and beech trees dominated the space and the skinny, silver-birches squeezed up beside them. I laughed. For a second, the woods reminded me of school and I needed to run a lot faster.

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Thursday, 15 December 2011

STOLEN: INCLUDING 9 THINGS LEARNED