dictonary writing exercise

so this morning i did a writing exercise to just keep my mind working. this comes from the same book i talked about in this post, the daily writer by fred white. i put two different exercises into one. one was to build your vocabulary list and then the other was the at random open up the dictionary and jot down any word you didn't know and then use it in a poem. so i put them together and opened up the dictionary at random and wrote down any words i didn't know into my notebook. then after i have a bunch of different words i tried to use them in different sentences.

for example: ripsnorter - something extraordinary. sentence: marianne's wedding dress was ripsnorter.

so i did a bunch of those. and while writing those sentences different ideas come to me about what kind of story i would write that would use these kinds of words. i remember doing things like this in middle school and high school. and it seems like just busy work, but i think it is a valuable tool (now that i'm older) to help build my vocabulary skills.

ps- when i used spell check for this post, blogger said that ripsnorter wasn't a word.

i will eat you!

so this past weekend i went and saw where the wild things are. it was a wonderful movie! i was a little worried because the book is very short and has barely any words. thankfully the movie was great! it quotes the book and uses more imagery than words to tell the story. which i think follows the book wonderfully! the book was written by maurice sendak. the movie was written by spike jonze (he also directed it) and dave eggers. i think the they did a wonderful job adapting sendak's work into the movie. i think they made the right choice by having the imagery tell more of the story then actual words. sometimes in life words can't say how you fell and imagery is the only way; whether it's a smile or a bite on the arm or a pat on the butt.

so your wondering why i'm writing about this in my blog? well i'm writing about it because it's just a well written movie and i thought i would share with everyone why i thought so. even though i hate critics, and i'm pretty much being one in this post, i just had to share that this movie was well written!

time

so my normal job has changed my hours, which is good news for i will have more time to work on my writings now. before i worked from 8:30am-5pm, now i work from 7am-3:30pm. so when i get home i can sit down and write and whatnots. so i think i will do that today when i get home from work. i haven't had a good writing day in awhile. so it will feel nice. i can work on my poetry manuscript, my letterboxing article and a bunch more. and i can work late into the night for i don't have to be at work tomorrow until 11am. plus i just got a bunch of pictures i took back from the developers so now i have some really nice photo's for some inspirational poetry. so overall i'm in for a good writing night. i'll make some hott chocolate and just sit in front of the computer and work. it will feel really nice when i'm done for the evening. a writing night always does. i always have a sense of accomplishment when i'm done for the night, for usually i get a bunch done. plus when i'm done for the night i usually have whatever thoughts that have been bothering me writen out and thought over; so they aren't just in my head anymore. so i strongly suggest everyone have a writing night, they will make you feel great in the end.

death knocks

with halloween in mind here's my 'spooky' poem:

when death knocks on my door
i smile
for we are old friends
playing a game of cat and mouse
when finally i embrace him in the end.

i realize that this is about death, but halloween tends to be about that. i also realize that this isn't spooky. this is also not a new poem. i wrote this last year at halloween time. a guy i know had drawn a skeleton-like picture on a dry erase board and i had added this poem to go with it. so i thought i would share it with everyone here.

catching up

so i've finally wrote out my superhero poem. i'll be sending it off to the place today when i get back from work. i haven't been writing too much lately for i've just been sooo tired from work; that i come home and just flop into bed. but i've stretched and i'm ready to go now.

with halloween coming up, i think i'll write something a little spooky just for fun and share it here with everyone.

on a sad note, a friend of mine's grandmother died this past weekend and ever since i've heard the news i've had a poem ratteling around in my head. once i actually write it out, i'm going to send it to his mother (i was really close with his family). and i'll also share it with everyone here.

letterboxing

this is me letterboxing. it was such a nice fall day that jeremy and i decided to go and look for some. that day i had found 3 different stamps. one at carthage college (where the picture was taken) and 2 at the racine zoo. this is tons of fun to do and is great for all ages. and 9 times out of 10 you get to see some beautiful landscape. like lake michigan in the background of this photo.

what does this have to do with writing? well i've been reading more and more magizines and there are a bunch about the outdoors. well i was looking to see how they get their articles and a bunch of them have at least 50% freelance articles. so i've decided that i'm going to write an article about letterboxing and the great outdoors. i think letterboxing will be a great article for an outdoor magizine. espically one that promotes different things you can do out doors; like a state magazine.

nature

well this is me with my awesome new camera. i've taken about 4 rolls of film with it already, and i'm itching to do more. last weekend i was in wisconsin and i took a really cool one of a tiger, a kangaroo, and a tree with lake michigan as the background. well the tree one, jeremy kept a copy so that he can use it as a starting point in a painting he is going to do. which i think it just amazing! i feel touched that he liked my photo so much for he's an amature professional photographer. and it's really one of my favorites i've taken so far. it's really inspired me to write about nature in some poetry. eventually i'll put some of the photo's that have inspired me to write on here. because i use a film camera it's more work for me to put photo's on the computer. not hard work, but more work then i'm always willing to do. so when i have a bunch i will show them to you guys.

wisconsin review

well yesterday i sent two poems to the wisconsin review. hopefully they will get published. they are two poems that i think work great as a set. i wrote them in the style of america tanka. the american tanka magazine isn't accepting works right now, so i thought i would send these poems somewhere else. hopefully they will get in. but wisconsin review says it takes 4-6 months to get a response. sigh. oh well. i like them and think that they are worthy of getting published, so lets hope that the wisconsin review thinks so also.