Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Words


I have been fascinated by words for as long as I can remember. I love words that are fun to say, like 'antediluvian' and words that sound funny like 'ululate' (which really isn't funny). I remember loving Mary Poppins' song 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' and how cool I thought I was that, like Mary, I could say it backward. What a fantastic word. (I also grew up on games like Scrabble and Boggle, so maybe that explains part of it, too).

So, when one of my writer friends gave a writing lesson recently, I was excited to learn it involved words. (I know, what's a writing lesson without words, but be patient whilst I explain). One of her classes required extemporaneous speaking ('extemporaneous' might be a fun word if it didn't strike fear into the core of my being). The teacher would give them two seemingly unrelated countries and they had to find the commonality. So our exercise for the lesson was to pick two words out of a 'hat' that she'd prepared and come up with a question for our characters. It was a great exercise and very illuminating. Something you really could have fun with. Don't stop at one question or one answer (typically your first answer will be cliche' because, unfortunately, that is what is at the forefront of our imagination).

Your writing challenge for today: Open the dictionary to a random page and without looking, point to a word. Open your eyes and write down your first word. Repeat and write down your second word. Now, come up with a question for the characters of your WIP.

I would love to have you post your question(s) in the comments! Dont' forget to have fun with this.

Write on, my friends, write on.

2 comments:

  1. Peggy, I am so glad you had fun with this! I have warm tingles. If I have time to do one, I'll post it tomorrow night or Wednesday.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wanted to do one weekly, but haven't done it yet. I need to! I'll post my words/questions when I do.

    ReplyDelete

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