Jill Berry Blog

living the creative life

Re-writing History

Posted on February 10, 2009 - Filed Under Creative Exercises

My friend Jennifer is recovering from surgery and really needs me to get bossy with her while she idles away the hours on the couch with her cat. So, here is assignment number 1, an exercise I do in my journaling classes. It is fun, and a simple way to re-write an article, a letter, any body of text that you don’t want to read the way it is. An old breakup letter? Your gas bill? Your “job has been eliminated” forms? 

This was an article called “A leading man of the world”. I started by changing the headline, then circling words that I liked in each paragraph. 

Using colored markers, I blocked out each paragraph in a different color, leaving only the words that I had chosen for my new story. I cut out the columns and pasted them into my journal. Then took Gabriel’s pretty face and made him into Frida Kahlo. She is a tad masculine, not her best beauty day, but nicely dressed.

I gave her flowers and a chandelier earring to make her happy. Here is here new story.

There ought to be some respectable women

like Frida Kahlo.

It’s a brisk hot aura. Now a renaissance.

Tambien Diego erupts!

Cheers! Viva a girl! 

Good as anything who lives.

A youth with a social conscience

Visible as ever, the romantic couple’s breakup.

Oh, and a class Mexican coping with upheaval.

More than a heart is endangered: talent.

The female art-house with cosmopolitan appeal 

Who managed to connect.

 

Apologies to Gabriel Garcia Bernal for trans-gendering him without permission. 

Go for it Jennifer!!

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