Hot under collar. / Confronted by writer’s block. / Angry, you haiku.

There’s no excuse for Commpose members getting hot under the collar anymore. Not after we tackled creative writing exercises aimed at spreading our creative wings and filling the dreaded blank page at our September meeting.

Inspired by my own efforts to stretch my creativity as a copywriter and overcome writer’s block, I presented exercises centered around:

  • Reflective writing or journaling.
  • Writing against constraints like time, space or structure.
  • Writing to an abstract prompt like describing a color to the blind. (Thanks Kim!)

Our first challenge (inspired by Jason Baer) was to pitch our business in fewer than 100 Twitter-friendly characters. Melissa Balkon pitched her Strong Design Studio thusly:

Helping superstar small businesses make a strong impact on their market.

The exercise led to a great conversation about setting one’s business apart in words. The conversation was so good, in fact, that it forced us to combine our final two drills into a single exercise.

So, we described the color red to someone who’d never seen it – using five-syllable, seven-syllable, five-syllable haiku form. Responses ranged thematically from steamy (Kim Stearns) to sports car sleek (Jen Halloran). This was Kim’s take:

Lust on a warm day / Fire of passion and anger / Pulsing blood through veins

Yowza!

We hope to see you all at the next Commpose meeting on October 20 with special guest speaker Charlene Kingston of Crown Information Design (and of course, @Kinchie on Twitter)! We may kick off the meeting with a quick writing exercise, so mark your calendars!