Skip to main content

Write Now: Collect Words


-->

Collect Words


by Rochelle Melander

My 9th grade English teacher loved the word garage. I didn't get it. For me, the word garage conjured up images of oil spots and old tools. She kept saying, "Listen to the sound, to how the word rolls off your tongue: garage." This morning as I walked the dog, her words came back to me. I muttered to myself, "Garage, garage, garage." More "g" words came to me: Garage. Gasoline. Gawk. Gorgeous. Gorgonzola. I said them aloud to the dog. He sniffed at the ground, ignoring me. But I kept going—I was finally appreciating the sound of the words, noticing how they felt as they rolled off my tongue.


In Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge's book Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life WithWords, she dedicated a whole chapter to "collecting words and creating a wordpool." She says, "Words are lightweight, unbreakable, portable, and they're everywhere. You can even make them up. ... A word can trigger or inspire a poem, and words in a stack or thin list can make up poems." (pp. 9-10)


So here's your assignment: collect words. Dedicate a day, a week, or the rest of your life to gathering delicious words. Borrow them from books. Steal them from signs. Scribble down the words you overhear at the coffee shop and in the park. Once you have a bunch, copy the words onto small index cards or raffle tickets. Then play with them. Rearrange the words. Add new ones. Make sentences. Create poems. See what you can whip up with a few solid words!

Comments

nikkisa889 said…
?I was very pleased to search out this internet-site.I needed to thanks in your time for this excellent read!! I positively having fun with every little little bit of it and I've you bookmarked to check out new stuff you weblog post. best online casino
November 1, 2018 at 3:11 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Six-word Scary Stories

We've done six-word memoirs. Tonight the Dream Keepers wrote six-word scary stories. Read and enjoy! (Then write and submit your own in the comment field!) A vampire destroys the city with power. —Tramonta Garner (pictured above) One virus. One town. No survivors. —Jaimee Bogard-LaMar, 14 One girl. Many monsters. What's next? —Jaimee Bogard-LaMar, 14 Big zombie eats eyeballs. City blind. —Elisha Branch, 14 One house. One family. Both gone. —Elisha Branch, 14 Knock, knock. Who's there? Killer mysterious. —Derranesha, 12 Baby cries. No answer. What happens? —Derranesha, 12 Ring, ring. "Hello." Please help me. —April, 12 The spooky monster ran towards me ... —Sonya, 17 The worm crawls into the brain. —Sierra The slippery, slimy monster grabs two. —Quintoya Eskridge
Post a Comment
Read more

Write Your Dreams

--> Write Your Dreams by Rochelle Melander Your dreams can be a rich source of stories, images, metaphors, and sensory details for your writing.  Many famous novels began with the writer's dreams. Mary Shelley was staying with Lord Byron in Switzerland during a frightful cold spell. Byron suggested they write a ghost storied. After Shelley came up with the idea of a reanimated corpse, she had a spooky dream: that dream became the core of her famous novel  Frankenstein . While traveling on a train, E.B. White dreamed of a small, adventurous mouse. Although he started writing the story almost immediately, it would be twenty years before he published, Stuart Little . When Stephen King snoozed on a long flight, he dreamed about a woman who kills her favorite writer, using his skin to bind a book. That dream gave him the idea for his bestselling book, Misery .  You, too, can use your dreams...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dream Keepers at Milwaukee Public Library

Dream Keepers at Villard, June 2012 This fall, Dream Keepers will be meeting at various urban locations of the Milwaukee Public Library. All of the program titles, locations, and times are listed below. The events are free and open to the public. Please join us! Six-word Scary Story. Can you tell a scary in six words? Here are some from previous writing workshops: One virus. One town. No survivors. —Jaimee Bogard-LaMar; Big zombie eats eyeballs. City blind. —Elisha Branch. When: Monday, October 8, 2012; 4 – 5 pm  Where: Capitol Drive Library, 3969 N. 74th St. When: Monday, October 22, 2012 4-5:30 PM Where: M.L. King Library, 310 W. Locust Street Gratitude Poem or Letter. What are you thankful for? Write a thank you letter or poem to someone you appreciate and then craft it into a thank you card for them. (open to all ages ) When: Monday, November 5, 2012; 4 – 5 pm Where: Capitol Drive Library, 3969 N. 74th St. When: Monday, November 12, 2012; 5 – 6pm ...
1 comment
Read more