February Word Challenge, Day 3

My five random words for today’s exercise are holly, young man, arch (again?), poverty, and fever.

Chosen word for free association: arch  (since it seems to be insistent)
lintel, keystone, rival, enemy, angel

Exercise:
All of the arches in Rylaain were magically imbued with the souls of people. But over time, even souls fade, and centuries on, only one arch remained among the rubble of its peers to tell the tale of their civilization: the Temple Arch. There’s something to be said for the permanence of an angel’s soul.

February Word Challenge, Day 2

My five random words for today’s exercise are pin, mosquito, arch, film, and porch.

Chosen word for free association: film
movie, thin layer, protective, false, obscuring, veneer

Exercise:
Of his former self, only a thin surface layer still remained. The transformation had taken years, and now the only recognizable thing tying him to the past was an invisible veneer of guilt, clinging to the surface of his skin like living armor.

February Word Challenge, Day 1

(As noted in my last post, today begins the February Word Challenge proposed by J.T. Evans.)

My five random words for today’s exercise are chapel, masking tape, peanut, gang, and copier.

Chosen word for free association: copier
photocopy, scribe, illuminated manuscript, The Secret of Kells, tower, Vikings, raids

Exercise:
Smoke drifted on the Irish wind, obscuring at times the high crosses and five-windowed tower of the Kells monastery. The Book rested safely on its pedestal, high in the tower, while Viking raiders circled below, oblivious to its presence.

(Well, that’s not much, but it’s only a 10 minute exercise.)

February Word Challenge (as proposed by J.T. Evans)

J.T. Evans is a Colorado Springs writer, and he issued a challenge to his writer friends. In a nutshell, he’s challenging us to complete a daily ten minute writing exercise, recording each day’s process in our blogs (or Facebook Timelines, or whatever.) Direct from the link above:

The challenge goes like this:

  1. Pick a random word from the dictionary (I have a Perl script snagging 5 random words from the dictionary for me, and I’m picking one of those.)
  2. Free associate words (or very short phrases) based on that word for three minutes.
  3. Pick one of those words (or phrases) or the original word and write something creative based on this for five minutes.
  4. The whole exercise, including transition and thinking time should take no more than ten minutes.

J.T. is using a Perl script to generate his prompts, but for those who are not sure they have time to learn Perl in the 28 days before the contest ends, he generously provided this link, as well.

I’m going to give this a shot. I’m doing a lot of musical stuff right now, too, but I should be able to manage ten minutes per day. I want something to help keep my writing skills sharp, even if my creativity focus has shifted a bit at the moment.

Resolute 2017

Resolute 2017
(for myself and the world in general)

Less anger
More agreement

Less bitching
More bonding

Less conflict
More cooperation

Less drinking
More dancing

Less excess
More economy

Less fighting
More fixing

Less griping
More giving

Less hate
More Haight

Less introversion
More inclusion

Less judging
More jokes

Less kicking
More kissing

Less loneliness
More love

Less madness
More music

Less negativity
More nature

Less oppression
More openness

Less politics
More poetry

Less quarrelling
More quality

Less racism
More respect

Less sexism
More sex

Less television
More time

Less ugliness
More understanding

Less violence
More victories

Less weed
More words

Less xenophobia
More xiexie

Less yammering
More yoga

Less zealousy
More zebras

— Stace Johnson, 2016