Seussercize 1: Create a Creature - writercize #194

As promised, post one of a three part Seussercize series in honor of Theodore Geisel's birthday!

Frequent readers of Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, his preferred pseudonym, know that his imagination ran wider than the English language. He often created creatures out of nonsense words. Ever meet the Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz? How about the Fiffer-Feffer-Feff? Some of his characters have become so well-known in English that they require no illustration. Think of the Lorax or the Grinch, even the Sneetches. Prior to Seuss, none of these animals existed, but thanks to his creativity and vision, we accept them as a part of our modern-day lexicon.

Today, I invite you to create a creature of your own. You may introduce your creature in literary form with a poem or short story, or you may choose to name your character and illustrate it instead. Please leave me a comment or a link to your own page so that I can see your fabulous imagination at work!

writercize: Create a brand new creature out of a non-sensical word. Think about what you want your character to look like, what it likes and dislikes, how it behaves!

Click "read more" for a character named the Hiccurpeeze that's been living in your writercizer's brain since her early days as a babysitter. This is but a small snippet of who he is. Poor guy has been lying dormant for about 20 years, but one day, the writercizer hopes to get to know him better and give him a story worthy of sales and illustrations.

Time to SEUSSercize! - Sublime Silliness Scheduled

March 2 marks 109 years since the great Theodore Geisel's birth. Who was Theodore Geisel, you may ask? I'll give you a hint. His middle name was five letters long, with three S's and he preferred to go by Doctor. Here's another hint - if you are under 50 years old, he was probably someone who taught you how to read.

If cats and hats, ham and eggs and fish in all colors of the rainbow jumped into your head, you've probably guessed it. Theodore Geisel was the real name of beloved children's author Dr. Seuss. 

Dr. Seuss' books probably wouldn't be published today - his stories run long and can be very repetitive in the current world of "less is more" publishing. They certainly exceed the 1,000 word suggested max word count for picture books. He may be hard-pressed to find a publisher willing to print his 60+ page tomes for children, but ... because he is Dr. Seuss, he is printed. And he may be printed for as long as elementary school aged children learn to read. Seuss has even made the leap over to TV, movies and iPad. 

When Seuss began writing for children, he was approached by a director for Houghton Publishing and asked to write a book using the top 250 words that first-graders should recognize. (Some sources claim 250, others claim he 225 of which he used 223 and 13 more. Hard to say with unreliable internet research...) Several authors at the time were doing the same time with little readers, in Dick and Jane style, but William Ellsworth Spaulding, the Houghton director, had a sneaking suspicion they were boring. He wanted Seuss to mix things up a bit, make reading fun and exciting for kids.

And so, with 236 of those 250 words, repeated many, many times, Dr. Seuss created Cat in the Hat. Never one of my favorites, I was impartial to One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish growing up, along with The Butter Battle Book. I won a read aloud contest in middle school for my dramatic rendition of Green Eggs and Ham and was awarded a Music Millennium gift card (Portland shout-out!) that eventually made its way into someone in my family with considerably more prowess in a music store. Leave me with the books ...

Now, beyond his beginning reader books, Seuss made a splash on a couple of other fronts. One was his thinly veiled dream image of a peaceful, egalitarian, environmentally aware world that existed in books like The Lorax and The Sneetches, and the other was his ability to play with words that absolutely did not exist. I'm not sure how the man who stuck to 236 common words for Cat in the Hat ended up writing about things like Whoville and Fiffer-Feffer-Feff and Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz, but he did.

When Seuss was writing and not illustrating, he published under the pseudonym Theo LeSieg, which is Geisel backwards.

Although he was notably a bit of a perfectionist and could spend a very long time with a book, he was unquestionably one of the most prolific authors of the past century.

So, what to do at writercize to celebrate the late, great Dr. Seuss? How about a whole week of Seuss-ercize! There will be THREE Dr. Seuss inspired writercizes this week! So stay tuned, and get ready to writercize, because there is some great stuff headed your way!

Back to Basics - writercize #172 #AtoZChallenge

Anyone remember the basics of sentence structure? Would you be able to label each part of a sentence with the appropriate part of speech? 

Chances are, with the exception of a few editors out there, you'd be somewhere in my realm. I have a feeling for what works and what is best left alone, and I can certainly tell you the difference between a verb and a noun, an adverb and an adjective, but ask me how to fix a sentence that ends in the word "to" or identify appositives and relative pronouns and I might look at you cross-eyed.

As I stretch my brain back to third grade and the basics of sentence structure, I remember every sentence (in English) must have a subject and a verb. That's it. Two simple words. I also remember it was deemed "preferable" to add an object.

Basic (subject/verb):

He played.

Step up (subject/verb/object):

He played ball.

I would be willing to bet that most of you reading this do not employ such simple sentence structure often. I certainly don't. I am a sucker for sentences that sing and dance in waves. I want my writing to flow, and short sentences create a staccato rhythm that I don't generally seek. Then there is my oft-used medium of journalism, where articles should exhibit an average sentence length of 16-17 words (so says the Associated Press Guide to News Writing). 

With so much of our reading and writing focused on longer sentences, why should we pay attention to the short guys? 

• Well, for one, breaks in the rhythm can be satisfying, and very telling. They can allow the reader to catch a breath. They can paint a different mood, or identify an important shift. 
• If we want to write for children (as I do) we have to know to reel in the words and use shorter sentences to harness power. Same goes for teaching children, and really speaking with them, truth be told. Ever see a kid's eyes glaze over with a run-on diatribe?
• It can really help identify holes in plot. Want to know if a story is working? Strip down every sentence to the basic action and see if the story is headed in the right direction. From there, you will see if there are holes that you need to fill in, or if there is fat that needs trimming.

Today's writercize will give you the opportunity to go back to basics and practice writing very short sentences. (This may feel like the exact opposite of freewriting.)

writercize: Write a short story using sentences of no more than six words each. 

Begin the story with a five-word sentence using the following structure: subject (noun) / verb / preposition / article / object (noun). Feel free to use the word bank below for your starter.

subject: He/She/Dad/Madeline/Tim

verb: played/ran/jumped/biked/swam

preposition: over/under/on/in/around

article: a/an/the

object: bridge/river/rainbow/mountain/forest

Leave your story as a comment. You should be able to complete a (very short) story in 50 words or less. Think board book!

(And PS - come back tomorrow for a C prompt that promises to be less than 100 words in the entire post!)

Click "read more" for (a very short) writercizer sample response about a boy and a rainbow.

Bathing Penguins - writercize #150

Posts have been a bit heavy lately with real world applications and serious tones, so I want to lighten things up and give you the chance to tell a story. And what animal could be more fun to highlight than the dapper little waddler, our friend the penguin?

writercize:  Tell a story, any genre (non-fiction or journalism also perfectly acceptable), prompted by the two following words: penguin, bath.

I look forward to reading about your bathing penguins!

Click "read more" for writercizer fictional (children's) sample response.

Fairy Tale Book Blurb - writercize #131

Earlier this month, Brianna Renshaw of Pocketful of Playdough hosted a guest writercize where she presented three different book blurbs and invited writers to create a first sentence for each book.  

Talk about a monumental challenge!  It took me a few days to garner up the courage to try the challenge (kudos to my regular writercizers - attempting a challenge and leaving a comment is hard work!), but I have to say I really enjoyed playing around with it.  

I did look to a few books on my own shelf for the challenge, but couldn't write about a book that I had read since it limited my ability to think outside the box, so I highly recommend using the book blurbs she shared (provided you haven't read them yet!) to try the challenge.  Now that I got the hang of it, it's a writercize I plan to use while browsing through bookstores whenever (make that if ever!) I have some time to kill.

Brianna's writercize got me thinking about book blurbs and how fun and theatrical they really are.  A book blurb is like the musical theater version of a story - it's the dramatic and intriguing and bold twin to the novel or short story's subtler, deeper tale.  It's the one place to go over the top with adjectives and mystery.

Since I want to give you a challenge that everyone can relate to, I want you to start with a familiar story and build the blurb.  

writercize:  Create a book blurb to complement the fairy tale of your choice.  

The blurb should be 3-5 sentences long and summarize the story without giving too much away.  Turn on both the marketing mind and the editor to make it work!

Please leave the result of all your hard writercize work as a comment, or leave a link to your page if you use it on your blog.  I love to see all the different ways people can imagine the same challenge!  (And by hard writercize work, I mean a few minutes to a half an hour.  Don't worry about perfection.  This site is about practicing your writing often, not perfecting it!)

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response about Cinderella.

The Important Thing - writercize #120

The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown, author of the omnipresent Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny books, is an interesting book in that it gives the reader a glimpse into Brown's mind and how she deemed what is important about various objects and concepts.  It is a book without a story or a plot, but there is certainly a theme.

In the book, Brown evaluates such various things as a spoon, a cricket, the rain, the wind and a daisy, identifying each with their unique (or in some cases not so unique) characteristics as well as what she determines to be the "most important thing" about each.  In some cases, she hits the nail right on the head.  In others, I think that she misses the mark a bit.  Nonetheless, it is what is most important to her, and understanding that and who she is interests me.

One of her stronger observations:

"The important thing about the rain is that it is wet.

It falls out of the sky, and it sounds like rain, and makes things shiny,

and it does not taste like anything, and it is the color of air.

But the important thing about rain is that it is wet."

I don't necessarily like that she uses "sounds like rain" as a way to describe the rain ... I'm apprehensive about using a word in its own definition, but I do appreciate what she has determined to be the important thing about rain.

Her weaker observations seem to do with boiling items' importance down to their color.  She claims the most important thing about a cricket is that it is black.  I may have argued that it chirps, or it tells the temperature (seriously!  true story!  count the chirps in 15 seconds and add 37 to get the degrees fahrenheit).  She also argues that the most important thing about a daisy is that it is white.  Eh, not convinced.  I may have argued that it is a flower or signifies purity or that it is only open during the day under the rays of the sun, but the fact that it is white (and it's not even always white!) doesn't make the best argument to me.

Each segment begins with "the important thing about x is y" and ends with "but the important thing about x is y."  In the middle, she shares around 5-7 other observations about what an object or concept is and is not.  Today, I want you to reflect on a concept, what it means to you, and which of those "definitions" is the most important aspect.

writercize:  Pick a holiday and reflect on its meaning.  Write an imaginary page in "The Important Book" about that holiday.

A few options:  New Year's Eve / Day, Valentine's Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Christmas, Hannukah, Eid, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Teacher Appreciation Day, Grandparents' Day, Chinese New Year, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, birthday, anniversary ... wow there are a lot of reasons to celebrate!

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response on a couple of fall holidays.  Leave your "Important Thing" as a comment or link to your blog!

Full Circle - writercize #115

I'm told all stories should have a beginning, middle and end.  I've come across a few without all three, but in general most decent writers seem to adhere to this basic principle.  

I've also read that occasionally, it's a good idea to tie the end in with the beginning, by returning full circle to the opener.  I must agree with "occasionally" because I could see that formula getting old if repeated too often.  That said, repeating a sentence in the beginning and end of a story can be a useful practice tool (or perfect way intro into the horror genre) to make sure that your story related from beginning to end.  I also think it's helpful for children learning to read and write, because it's a way for them to answer a question, which is really what writing is all about - fiction or non-fiction.

Imagine a kid asking a question - Why is the sun bright?  A parent or teacher may answer something about the burning gasses and reflection of light and whatever else factors into a bright sunny day and round out the question with an affirmative, "and that is why the sun is bright."

In that way, asking a child to write a full circle story where a single sentence is repeated in the beginning and end can help them along their way to literacy.

writercize:  Begin and end a short story (fiction or non-fiction ok) with the following sentence:  "The clock struck one."

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response, and check back tomorrow for the first guest post of the year by Word Nerd Speaks!

Circular Definition - writercize #103

This morning as we were buzzing around town, I pulled up to a stop light right behind a really cool, old time convertible. I pointed it out to my girls, who are four with all the imagination, creativity and limited vocabulary that comes with that. 

One of them looked at it, very impressed, and said, "You know, Mama?  I think Daddy wants a no top car that makes it a lot of wind sometime."

The translation for this, naturally, is, "Hey Mama - I think Daddy wants a convertible sports car!"

Hence, the circular definition.  A circular definition is one that is used to describe a word or phrase that you do not know.  It may be visual or full of metaphors and similes, but it is not anything that would be found in Webster's.  

For a wordsmith, it may be difficult to come up with a circular definition, so I would recommend that you pretend you are learning a new language and need to describe an item or idea to someone without knowing the right words.  Imagine having only a limited grasp of the language, with a random assortment of entry level words, and try to get your message across.  It's sort of like a reverse game of 20 questions.

"Is it a car?" - yes

"Is it windy?" - yes

"Does it have a ceiling?" - no

Aha, it must be a convertible! 

writercize: Write a circular definition for any item or concept you want.  Challenge your mind to work in reverse.

Click "read more" for a real life writercizer experience describing "liquid antibacterial soap" at a pharmacy in Italy, likely conjuring up some very odd images for the pharmacist.

From Pieces to Plot - writercize #98

I recently purchased a fantastic game for my kids, one full of wonder, intrigue, cute graphics and, every writer's favorite, unlimited story-telling opportunities.  And it's sturdy.

The game is by eeBoo, a great toy company with all sorts of creative games, and it's called Fairytale Spinner Game.  If you have girls who like to use their imaginations, buy it!  If you have boys, well, there are still ogres and foxes and kings and they just might like it too if they can get past the giant princess picture on the top of the box.

Kids and their grown up friends spin to collect a hero, a rival, a helper, a magical object, a mean of transportation, a treasure and an enchanted place.  Once they have collected all their objects, they create a story.  I love how simple pieces and objects combine to create an entire plot, so I thought I would share one combination of the pieces (minus the enchanted place - you can make that up) and see what you come up with!

writercize:  Using the six objects in the photo to the right, write a short story.  

If the photo is not clear, you will be working with: magic feather, princess, ogre, puss in boots (or other thigh-high boot-wearing cat with a feather in it's cap), hot air balloon, golden tree.  Be creative and have fun with it!

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response.

Numeric Rhyme Time - writercize #75

Today it's all about numbers mumbo jumbo!

As my kids are out of preschool for the summer, we've been sure to get in plenty of rhyming and singing fun to help them learn some new concepts such as seasons and letters and time ... and numbers!  Suffice it to say, I have counting and rhymes on the brain big time.

Number rhymes are fantastic for learning about mathematics and language all rolled into one.  Rhyming is one of the top pre-literacy skills kids can learn; it helps them with phonics and language development, and it's a simple technique to inspire memorization.  

Think back to a couple of rhymes English speakers surely learned from a very young age:

1, 2 Buckle my Shoe

3, 4 Shut the Door

5, 6 Pick up Sticks

7, 8 Lay them Straight

9. 10 A Big Fat Hen

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

I caught a fish alive.

6, 7, 8, 9, 10

I let it go again.

These are simple rhymes; the first borders on non-sensical, but it encourages children to learn number sequence in a format that sears itself into memory.

writercize:  Create a rhyme based on numbers.  You may sequence as many or as few numbers as you like; count by 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s or even fractions.  Pick any theme for your rhyme.

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response on dancing numbers.  (Note: Tuesdays are pretty busy writing days for me "off the blog," so I try to keep things light and fun over here at writercize.  Log on most Tuesdays for word play.)