Rewriting Sentences Part 2 (W.E. 14)

For those of you who don't know, this is a blog about writing exercises. These exercises I've found around the web and may possibly come up with on the spot. This is just for fun and to get me into the habit of writing frequently. I hope you will join me on this journey of writing. I will be posting every Tuesday and Friday as long as I have steam to do so. 

Exercise 14

I thought that we could try another exercise like exercise 06.  In this one, we’ll use the sentence: “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.” ― James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion

Now, if you missed exercise 06, what we will be doing is rewriting a sentence as many ways as we can think of. The minimum number of times being 5.  Expand your ability to create.

[ 1 ] A positive person believes life is wonderful; a negative person thinks it’s terrible.

[ 2 ] Someone who thinks in the light enjoys living; someone who thinks in the darkness can’t comprehend the enjoyment of living.

[ 3 ] The children of the light know we live in the best time; the children of the dark loathe this time.

[ 4 ] An era of the light shows us the greatness of our world; an era of the dark wants nothing to do with our world.

[ 5 ] An open minded person thinks life is a gift; a narrow minded person thinks life is torture.

[ 6 ] To open your heart to the possibility of the best world leads to happiness; to close your heart to the world leads to emptiness.

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Authors Note:

I might be getting better at this.  If you guys would like express your enjoyment of these type exercises as well, comment or tweet me @lylathewicked and I will continue to post new ones.  I honestly think these exercises are a great way to expand the way a person thinks and writes.

Desiderius Erasmus(W.E. 06)

"Desiderius Erasmus, a sixteenth-century humanist whose many interests included developing methods for instruction in language and writing, recommended that writers have at their disposal a plentiful supply of words. In his colloquy on copiousness (abundance), De Duplici Colpia Verborum et Rerum (1512), he encourages writers to invent different ways of saying the same thing. Such an exercise stimulates a writer's creativity; also, as his examples show, each variation creates a slightly different meaning. Erasmus chose to begin with the banal sentence "Your letter pleased me very much"; he then wrote 150 variations. Try this yourself. Take his sentence and recreate it at least 5 different ways."  (The Literary Experience(compact edition) - Bruce Beiderwell & Jeffery M. Wheeler [Chapter 11])

(1) Your letter warmed my heart.

(2) I was pleased by your letter.


(3) I enjoyed your letter very much.

(4) Your letter made me feel delighted.

(5) I was enchanted by your letter.


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Authors Notes:
I hope you guys make an effort to try this relatively short exercise. It shouldn't take more than 30 minutes, less if your creativity is sparked. I actually did another one of these in my English 201 class. I didn't fare much better. I can't seem to be very eloquent lately.

By the way if anyone knows of any other really cool ideas for writing exercises tweet them to me @lylathewicked