CHRISTINE TRZYNA - WRITERLY LIFE: Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop

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2/11/26

I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR

How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?

How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?

How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?

Look in the mirror and say aloud "I AM A WRITER!"

12/13/25

SINGING: EXPERIENCE FIFTY : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

I'm not into karaoke but friends are. When they ask me to join in I say, "I only sing in the shower when no one is home and somebody is always home." What about you? Are you a natural singer? A trained voice? Can you stay on key when you sing Happy Birthday? Tell us about you singing.

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
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10/15/25

GOODNESS OF HEART : EXPERIENCE FORTY-NINE: CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

In my series of snack endorsements, I write that I was not PAID to say it. Well, being paid, rather than volunteering or doing something that one could be paid for but one does for experience or as an internship, or out of the goodness of their heart is ... different.

What have you done out of the goodness of your heart, without expectation of pay, reward, or credit ?

When and why? (Be honest!)

(Remember that you never have to show anyone what you wrote about this or any other subject in this writing workshop!)

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
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OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.

10/10/25

GRAHAM WALLAS on CREATIVITY : WORTH REPEATING

GRAHAM WALLAS on CREATIVITY

"According to Graham Wallas, a sort of re-ordering process takes place in the brain during creativity, which he calls incubation. A creative person develops interest in a particular subject, gathers supporting material, and studies everything possibly related to it. He calls this first stage preparation. After some time, the accumulated material reaches a boiling point and something incomprehensible goes on during the period of incubation that forms a prelude to the next stage, illumination. In three stages - preparation, incubation, and illumination - the creative person receives a new insight and finds a solution to the problem, or can rearrange the accumulated material to put it under an all embracing principle."

As mentioned in THE KUNDALINI BOOK OF LIVING AND DYINIG
Gateway to Higher Consciousness
Ravindra Kumar and Jytte Kumar Larsen

Worth Repeating: First posted September 25, 2010

9/5/25

FIRST GRADE : EXPERIENCE FORTY-EIGHT : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

Go back to first grade. Tell your experience story in the mind and language of that first grader. Are you reading? Do you like your teacher? Is there homework? What are you wearing? Do you take the school bus? Keep going...

Then, as an adult, answer this: How did first grade influence your education from then on?

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.

8/26/25

MY FAVORITE BACKGROUND MUSIC TO WRITE BY THESE DAYS : COZY LIBRARY COFFEE SHOP : LOFI MUSIC

KODI LOFI YOUTUBE STATION : COZY LIBRARY COFFEE SHOP

Damn but this one makes me want to own a coffee shop, maybe near some beach.

8/16/25

BREAKING SOME OF THE RULES OF CREATIVE WRITING

By Christine Trzyna

Here are some of the Rules of Creative Writing I've heard in various classes that I've found published authors have broken successfully.

1) Never use italics or bold or fancy fonts as a means of expression. You should use adjectives and adverbs.

2) Never have more than a few characters. The story is too complicated and difficult to follow when you load up your short story or novel with too many.

3) Don't use run on sentences that are overly descriptive with fancy language. If you can't read it without taking a breath, the sentence is too long. (Strunk and White advocates simple, clear, communicative writing.)

4) Use standard punctuation. This is not the place to get creative.

5) Don't write your life story and then try to publish it as fiction.

(This post was first posted September 4, 2008)

C 2025 Christine Trzyna

C 2008-2025 Christine Trzyna
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7/15/25

PARENT'S WORLD VIEW : EXPERIENCE FORTY-SEVEN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

Put yourself into your parent's world view and explain it in their voice. What did they or are they saying to you now (even if they have died)?

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.

3/19/25

HUMILIATION : EXPERIENCE FORTY-SIX : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

Remember a time when you were humiliated. How old were you? What happened? Are you ashamed to this day? Have you made it into a secret? Or is the experience now laughable?

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.

2/16/25

DESTRUCTION : EXPERIENCE FORTY-FIVE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

So much DESTRUCTION from fires, floods, hurricanes, tornados. Natural Disasters.

Write about an experience of loss from some event that you had no control over.

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
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OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.

9/3/24

ROMANTIC : EXPERIENCE FORTY-FOUR : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

ROMANTIC

What's the most romantic thing you ever did?

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
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5/22/24

FOODIE : EXPERIENCE FORTY-THREE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

FOODIE

Choose a food or ingredient you despise or a favorite and write all about it. Or imagine a food you've never tasted or swallowed or digested, and write with imagination about what it might be like to experience eating it!

(I personally do not understand what anyone gets out of eating hot peppers.)

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.

4/23/24

HUMAN BODY : EXPERIENCE FORTY-TWO : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

This exercise was created after a hilarious experience I had recently. I was with a group of women, most totally unknown to me, ranging in age from mid forties to seventies, and one of them accused another of them of farting. Soon we as individuals and a group were either laughing out loud or repressing ourselves from doing so. Some of us had ordered old fashioned bean soup with lots of carrots and ham and well, there was a lot of witnessing about digestion, food allergies, and farts. Telling a friend of mine about this, he said, "But it's a natural body function."

So, those of you who are following along on my Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop here on Google Blogger, may want to write - be that seriously or with a sense of fun - about the HUMAN BODY.

Are there natural functions you are uncomfortable with or are you a beast?

Don't let me repress you!

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.

1/18/24

PRIVACY : EXPERIENCE FORTY-ONE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

PRIVACY

What information do you withhold about yourself?

With someone new in your life?

With your relatives?

With your boss or co-workers?

With yourself?

Why?

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.

10/3/23

THE FATHER OF FLOW? GOOGLE FEATURED MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI

I clicked on the artistry on the Google start page a couple mornings ago, a pastel image of a man with a lot of flowing energy depicted and came upon Mihaly Czikszentmihaly a Hungarian-American who died a couple years ago, a psychologist who studied flow. I'd never heard of the man before honestly, but since I talk about writing in flow and staying in flow, I thought it might be interesting to learn more about his work.

***

I experience flow as a sort of deep concentration and focus and it used to be that I could stay in it for hours. The enemy of flow, as I experience it, is interruption. Your own cell phone going off for instance. Other people's. My local library is not so quiet. Libraries used to be refuge but are now mostly distraction. Finding a bolt-hole is necessary.

Some people have learned how to tune out all the distractions around them - loud music - conversations - and focus intently on their computer, maybe with earphone or earbuds and some low volume relaxing music. I have some " relaxing music" YouTube videos that I choose to listen to while writing.

Silence and quiet, hearing only the sound one makes from physical activity and that of nature around us, is rare but desirable. In our experience now, we are so used to 'aloneness' with sound, in particular music, movies, films - information (some would say programming) coming in - or bombarding us - that fear can be experienced in silence and quiet. However, I suggest we go without this bombardment from sound when we are writing, also, because we need the thoughts, insights, and intuitions, coming in to us that may be obscured when our brains are also engaged in processing the audio incoming.

***

What does Mihaly Czikszentmihaly think?

CLAREMONT COLLEGE GRADUATE PROGRAM : PEOPLE : MILALY CZIKSZENTMIHALY

U CHICAGO : MIHALY CZIKSZENTMIHALY FATHER OF FLOW

8/25/23

TENDERNESS : EXPERIENCE FORTY : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

TENDERNESS

In a harsh world is TENDERNESS a rare quality? Are you tender? When or how are you tender? Is someone tender with you? How does it feel?

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

7/15/23

CREATING A CHARACTER: EXPERIENCE THIRTY-NINE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

CREATE A CHARACTER

Create a person who would be your favorite playmate. Where would you go? What would you do? What would you talk about? Or do you talk? Describe this person in detail. Then your interaction.

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

6/18/23

UNLIKELY? EXPERIENCE THIRTY-EIGHT : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

Is there someone you're interested in who you would have an UNLIKELY relationship with?

Someone who does not 'look good on paper?'

Someone who gets you even though there is some reason why it would never work out?

Write that person a letter.

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

5/12/23

OLD WRITING AS INSPIRATION : EXPERIENCE THIRTY-SEVEN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

Pull out some OLD WRITING that you did a while back - months or years ago - and read it.

What do you think about it now?

Rewrite it or rewrite a portion of it. Maybe just let a few sentences that you find especially important send you into a flow of writing.

Go where it takes you.

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.

4/16/23

WRITE YOURSELF OUT OF A PAPER BAG : EXPERIENCE THIRTY-SIX : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

WRITE YOURSELF OUT OF A PAPER BAG

That's an expression, another way of saying, write yourself out of a corner, or write yourself out of trouble.

That's your assignment!

Imagine your paper bag, your corner, or your trouble. How are you breathing? Let your imagine flow.

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.