Geoff Rod

I came up with some writing exercises that I used, usually at night, usually after walking the dogs, and usually when I was the only one awake.

I’d take something I’d seen or heard that day.  Maybe it was something physical, like a bridge or a building, or maybe it was something else, like a funny conversation I’d had at work.  Or a tense one.  Whatever the object was, I’d try to convincingly lay it down on paper.  More importantly, I tried to make it pop.  Even the most mundane places and events can be stunning if properly written.

But it’s not easy.

It was common that writing a single paragraph, maybe five or six sentences, would stretch well over an hour.  That same paragraph would have taken me maybe ten minutes with my previous style.

I also started pulling pages out of the Denver Nights manuscript.  I’d take maybe 2-3 of them, read them over, remember the message I’d tried to convey at the time, and then rewrite them.  This process would usually take me several days – I was still trying to not get pulled in too deeply – and when it was done, I’d compare the two.

They were like night and day.