Welcome back.

This quick course will help you establish a powerful writing habit: copying the greats.

There is something magical about copying. Simply by writing out another author's sentences, and then adjusting them, altering them, one's own artistic brain seems to be stretched, tested, strengthened.

This is Day four.

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Think of a time when you were struggling but somehow found solace.

Perhaps this was a rare moment of uplift among troubles. Perhaps you found a particular place, or activity, or connection that helped you make it through.

Here's a passage from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Take the sentence structures from her paragraph and use them to write your own. Copy the basic form of each sentence ("Even though..., I felt..." & "Such a ___ has ___"), and use them to structure your own sentences, so that your paragraph is a loose grammatical mirror of hers.

Mary Shelley:

“Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.”

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Don't take too long: just try to write for ten or fifteen minutes.

Let me know how this exercise worked for you.

Yours,

Daniel

Day Four : I’m not beaten yet [Copy the Greats]

This course is only available for enrolled students only.

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