Why, you purple-hued, tripe-visaged maltworm, you!

Don't be predictable and boring when you get angry. Get Shakespearian! It's easy with this Shakespearian Insult Kit. I'll get you started with some of my favorites:

Start with . . .             Then add . . .              End with . . .

beslubbering               beef-witted               barnacle!

dankish                       plume-plucked            measle!

yeasty                         sheep-biting               clack-dish!

fobbing                       dead-bolted               canker-blossom!

Take a deep breath, blurt out "Thou . . . " then pick a word from each column. (Added bonus: while they're thinking about it, you'll have the opportunity to run away.) Make your own list then mix and match whenever you feel like tickling some mad-mustachiod rascal's apostrophe. Email me some that you've made up and I'll post the best.

Cliches

Robert Louis Stevenson said, "Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but principally by catchwords." Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Beam me up, Scotty. As if! Can you hear me now . . .

A cliche (or catchword or platitude) is a phrase that has been used too much by too many people for way too long. (Here's a secret . . . I used to think Cliche was a town in France, but now I know that it's a place near Boring Town, just outside of Get a Bad Grade.)

Everyone knows you need to be fresh and interesting when you write, but it seems a shame to waste all those fabulous, poisonous, delicious cliches. So ambush your readers with the unexpected workings of your brain when they read "A friend in need is a . . . pest." Or "If at first you don't succeed . . . scream and yell and stomp your feet then ask for a cookie."

Now it's your turn to twist some cliches! Fill in the blank with something wild.

Don't judge a book by its __________ 

It's the squeaky wheel that __________

Nothing ventured, __________

A penny saved is __________

People who live in glass houses __________

If you can't beat 'em, __________

A hole big enough to __________

When in Rome __________

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man __________

Two's company, three's a __________

If the shoe fits, __________ 

All good things come to those who __________

I bet you can think of lots more, too. Whenever you hear a cliche, jot it down and scramble it up to make it new and fresh. And if you're told, "Everybody talks about cliches, but nobody does anything about them" you can say "Nuh uh!" because now you do! Uh oh, just thought of something . . . if they're really good, people will start using them way too much and then they'll become cliches too. But we can cross that breadbox when we get to it. Email me your best twisted soon-to-be cliches.

Similes and Metaphors

My favorite things to play with are similes and metaphors. Remember them? Similes are comparisons using the words "like" or "as" . . . for instance, light as a feather. Metaphors use words or phrases that compare things that aren't normally applied to them . . . like, all the world's a stage.

Similes can be cliches too. Which of these is more interesting?

Pretty as a picture . . . or . . . pretty as a spotted horse in a daisy pasture.

Cold as ice . . . or . . . cold as a cast iron commode on the shady side of an iceberg.

But they're easy as pie to create. Oops, I mean creating them is as easy as selling watermelon in July.

Take an object in the room you're in and come up with a list of similes and/or metaphors. No cliches, though. The backpack leaned against the wall like a bored security guard. The overstuffed backpack, tossed in a corner, waited like a land mine ready to explode at the slightest touch.

Here are some from the novel I'm working on.

- The third graders were surging against Andy, as if he were a beached whale they had to shove back into the ocean.

- teeth the color of three-day-old macaroni and cheese

- He had perfect hair that looked like shaved chocolate, both in color and curl.

- It looked like a psychedelic snowstorm.

Sometimes when I'm writing I can't think of anything but a boring old cliche like "pink as a pig." I write it anyway, because I never want to lose momentum when I'm writing. But then when I come back to revise, I might stop and mull it over for a long time, brainstorming a list of things that are pink. I've found that after I get a few of the obvious ones written on a piece of paper, it gives my brain some room to stretch and be more weird, er, creative. So then it might become "pink as bunny slippers covered in cotton candy." 

Round Robin Story

Here's a fun thing to do with a group of people. Sit in a circle. Set the timer for five minutes. Write as much as you can before the timer scares the bejeebers out of you. Then everyone passes their story to the left for the next person to continue with it. You'll have to read what's already been written before you add to the story. You want each page to make some sort of sense, but it's an exercise in creativity and speed. Don't talk about your ideas before you start writing, and go with the flow (is that a cliche?!) of the story that's passed to you. You could also have a theme for your stories. Each will be utterly and hilariously unique, but will have something to do with the number three . . . or an aardvark . . . or the sound of a train whistle . . . or Great Aunt Millie.

Story Starters and Writing Prompts

Just like an athlete practices every day, a writer has to write every day to stay in linquistic shape. It's not as hard as it might seem at first. Usually I check my email before I get down to the real work at hand. If I write a newsy email to my mom or to a friend, that's just like an athlete stretching his muscles. And I always-always-always type proper English in my emails. Proper spelling, capitalization, complete sentences. Mostly. I do have to be careful so my writing time doesn't slip away from me like a greased trout, though. When I write chatty emails about my life, it's almost the same as keeping a journal, which is another way to flex your writing muscles every day. I often print these out to save which is a particularly efficient way to keep a journal. (In this case "efficient" means "lazy.") Your journal can be anything from a fancy leather book with handmade paper to a 39-cent spiral notebook, my personal favorite. It has those ingenious lines so your writing doesn't slide downhill and that fabulous cover just begging for doodles.

I've learned some writing tricks along the way, if you're interested. (If you're not, just read every third word for the rest of this paragraph. You'll be amused in an entirely different way.) When I'm writing, often I'll stop for the day in the middle of a scene or even a line so I can jump right back into it the next day without having to think up something brand new. I always outline my novels. Not entirely, mind you, because sometimes my characters want to do something I haven't thought of. But I always have an idea of the overall story arc - what happens in the beginning, middle and end. My first draft is what I call my "vomit draft" . . . everything I know about my story comes out. Despite its name, it's good even though it's ugly and gross and stinks up the place. Then I go back and revise, revise, revise. And you know what I do after I've revised? I do some revision. Your best work only comes out after oodles of revision. An ugly, painful truth that no writer wants to believe. (And speaking of using incomplete sentences and beginning sentences with "And" . . . you can break writing laws as soon as you prove you know them. Because I said so.)

Sometimes I have problems jump-starting my writing whether it's because I don't have any ideas or because I have too many. But do I worry? Absolutely not. Once I started a story simply by developing a character and letting her talk. As she talked to me I found the setting, the theme and the reason she was telling me all of it. But that makes me sound kind of weird, so just pretend I didn't say that.

Mostly, if I'm stuck, I pick out a fun writing prompt. Here are some that I like.

- Pick up a picture in a magazine and make up a story about it.

- Set the timer for three minutes and write as much as you can about the color green or envy or courage or a llama or chocolate or whatever else pops into your brain.

- Use all five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell) to write a description about going skiing or eating watermelon or riding a bike. (Speaking of smell, once my son described our house as smelling like coffee and rancid sneakers. Was I embarrassed? Nah . . . until I saw it printed in the Denver Post for the entire world to see! Too bad it's true.)

- Describe yourself without telling what you look like. Again, all five senses. (What do YOU smell like? Nevermind. Forget I asked.)

- Brainstorm a list of "what ifs" . . . that's how the best stories are born.

- Brainstorm a bunch of first lines for a story. The beginning is the most important part, after all. Make sure each opening has your potential reader begging for more.

- If you could live the life of a fictional character, who would it be and why?

- Pick three of your favorite fictional characters from different books and write a scene with them talking to each other.

- Pretend you're busted for swimming in the neighbor's pool. Think of excuses to explain why you're there.

But don't do these all on the same day or your arm will most assuredly shrivel up to your elbow. And that would be bad.

Many of these activities are from the presentations I do at schools and libraries. Let me know if you enjoyed them! Be sure to check back every so often for more Fun Stuff To Do. I'll add to it whenever I think of something you might like . . . and whenever I can scratch out some time to play on my website.

Becky Clark

Ampersand Press

POB 3827

Parker, CO 80134

AmpersandPress@aol.com