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Suzanne Eaton's avatar

A few years ago I was challenged by my art therapist to paint the ugliest painting I could possibly imagine. This was an exercise to free me from expectations, self-judgment and over-planning. The assignment was to spend ten minutes getting out all of the ugly onto the canvas. It worked to get me past the block, past the fear of painting something ugly. Whenever I feel blocked or unhappy with my art now, I spend time intentionally painting something ugly with "bad" technique and chaotic composition. I often find gems in the ugliness that become the foundation for a piece that is authentic And now comes your prompt to write something to bore the reader. Thank you. I'm off to write something boring now.

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Abby Murphy's avatar

I love this take. My crit group and I have been talking about this - we've been considering it as a misinterpretation of "show, don't tell," which is thrown around so much in general writing advice. We don't actually sit down and think about what "show, don't tell" really means. I think a lot of the vague writing I've seen stems from this misinterpretation, where writers try to "show" what a character is feeling but end up just alluding to some distant event that we never find out about.

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