Wacky Ice Cream

It's summer, and that means...ice cream!


We may not be able to eat five scoops of ice cream at once, but how about naming five new ice cream flavors? Say good-bye to plain old vanilla and chocolate. Here's your chance to be creative.


Naming things is one of the funnest parts about writing. Let your imagination go crazy. Think about a hot, sizzling day, and come up with five exciting, over-the-top, wacky names for ice cream flavors. 


While you're imagining licking one of those deliciously goofy ice cream cones, try using your exciting new names in a story you're writing. 


Here are my wacky flavors. What are yours?


1. Star Light Strobe Light Strawberry
2. Polka-Dot Packs-a-Punch Pistachio 
3. Five-Alarm Fire Fantastically Fabulous Fudge  
4. Chill Out, Man Chillcolate
5. Razzie-Dazzie Rambunctious Raspberry 


Now excuse me. I think I hear the ice-cream truck outside.

Inspiration from a Box

On May 21 I posted about having an Idea Box. That's where you put objects inside a box, and when you need an idea for a story you reach inside and...voila! You have an idea. 


Today I'm thinking outside the box. Literally. I bought some stacking storage boxes for my study, and as you can see, they're covered with pictures. Each day I look at these boxes, but I don't feel inspired by them. Today I do. 


The pictures include a pair of gloves, chess pieces, a cat, a shovel, Christmas ornaments, garden shears, a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, a dog, a doll, a scuba mask, a sewing machine, a shirt, a pair of pants, a hammer, and the following types of shoes: tennis, T-straps, and high heels. 


Wow. That's an interesting assortment of stuff. Why did I feel inspired to really look at the box today? That's how inspiration works. We can't predict when or how it will strike. We just need to be open to it. It's everywhere, even on the side of a box. 


What if it's a magical box someone left behind when they moved? And when someone else opens the box, a pair of talking tennis shoes jump out? Followed by a scuba mask, a hammer, and a sewing machine? And they're all complaining about being left behind? 


Here's my challenge. Find an object in your house that you see every day. It may be a lamp, your kitchen table, or a pillow. Let yourself get inspired. See something magical about that object, and write about it. 


And if you write about my box and all the objects inside it, don't forget to put the lid back on. 

Editing and Weeding

Yesterday I worked in the yard. I'm not exactly what you would call a gardener. Here in the Pacific Northwest with our abundant rain we have to keep vegetation from taking over, so I'm mostly a weeder.


As I was digging out poor defenseless green things yesterday, I thought about how weeding is like editing. Or editing is like weeding. Huh?


We've seen gardening analogies with writing before. We plant the seed (get the idea), we fertilize and water (write the story), and we watch (wait to hear from an editor.) But what about the editing step? How is that like weeding?


Editing is an important step to create finished pieces of writing. Some of us (like me) love editing. Others (like some of my students) don't. Which kind of writer are you?


Either way, think about what we do when we weed a garden: 

• We get out our gardening tools (our paper, pencil, or computer where our story is written).

• We get rid out of the weeds that don't belong there (unnecessary words). 

• We take care around the young, tender plants we encourage to grow, giving them more water and fertilizer (the necessary words).

• Finally, we look over the garden to see how it all fits together (our story). 

Here's a weeding/editing exercise, and you don't even need gardening gloves! 

Take a story you're working on. Get out your "gardening tools" and look for unnecessary words, phrases, or sentences. Are there words that can be deleted? (Weeded?) Are there words that should stay and be pumped up? (Given more water and fertilizer?) Can you look over your story to see how it all fits together? (Your garden?)

A weeded garden is one that can grow, and the same for your story! 

Repetition

My husband loves crows, and I love the writing of Margaret Wise Brown, so her poem "Those Crazy Crows" is one of my favorites. The poem uses repetition in a fun way. Watch the 3rd, 5th, and 7th lines:


"Those Crazy Crows"


Those crazy crows on ragged wing
Fly over the woods
They never sing
They screech and they scream
But they never sing
Those crazy crows
They never sing 


"They never sing" is the line that repeats (with a slight variation in the 5th line). The repetition makes me think about flying. And isn't it true that crows don't sing? They caw and croak--not exactly what we would call singing! 


Try writing your own 7-line poem using repetition in the 3rd, 5th, and 7th lines. Here's mine:


"Those Silly Cats" (because I also love cats)


Those silly cats with glossy fur
Jump over the chairs
They're just a blur
They fly and they skid
Oh what a blur
Those silly cats
They're just a blur 

Threads

My grandmother, Bernice, braided this rug. Grandma was born in the tiny village of Łuczaje, Poland and came to the United States when she was 6 years old. She married my grandfather, Walter, when she was 16, and the following year my father was born. Bernice and Walter had 12 children all together. They farmed in Wisconsin, and in her "spare time" after cleaning, cooking, canning food for winter, making clothes, doing outdoor chores, and taking care of 12 kids, my grandma braided rugs.


I imagine Bernice (her Polish name was Bronisława), after a full day of hard physical work, sitting down to braid rugs. Was braiding just one more chore, or was it a way for her to express her creativity? 


My aunt recently gave me one of Grandma's rugs, and it's now one of my prized possessions. I think about the material she used: children's clothes that had been handed down several times. Old coats that had seen several winters. Worn-out dungarees from the farmhands and boys. Scraps of material from girls' woolen stockings or dresses. Faded wool blankets that were torn into strips. 


From all this used material, my grandma created something new and beautiful. From all the threads of her family's life, she braided a work of art with a tale to tell. 


Isn't that a lot like our stories? 


We start out with "used" material. We find the threads of the story. We braid the threads of our experience to create something new. And in the end, we have a work of art that tells a tale. 


Try your own braiding. Not a rug, but a story. Think of two or three incidents or "threads" from your family's life. Write about one of those threads, incorporating colors, textures, and material from your family's experience. Maybe your threads are something that happened to you. Or maybe they're something you've heard family members talk about. 


When you're done writing, share your story with your family. Like a beautiful braided rug, your story will be a work of art with a tale to tell--a tale that no one else but you could create from the fabric of your life. 

An Idea Box

Do you ever feel like you have no ideas? Lots of writers feel that way. Here's a way to make sure you'll never run out of ideas to write about. 


Find a box. Any old box will do: an empty shoebox, a box from the grocery store, or simply a box you find around the house.


This is your Idea Box. If you'd like, decorate it to make your box feel special.


Whenever you feel like it, put things into your Idea Box. What kind of things? A ticket stub from a movie. A candy wrapper. A canceled postage stamp from another country. An interesting word you write on a scrap of paper. A striped sock that has lost its mate. A cool rock you found on the sidewalk. 


Don't think too hard about what you put in your Idea Box: just whatever grabs you.


After a while, you'll have a lot of stuff in your Idea Box. Here's where it gets really fun.


One day, you'll think you have no ideas to write about. But you do! They're right there in your Idea Box. Go to your box and pull out three things without looking. For example, the candy wrapper, the rock, and the striped sock. Remember--no looking! The Idea Box works best if what you choose is random. 


Write a story about those three things. What if a magical rock can turn lonely socks into chocolate candy? 


Keep filling your Idea Box with stuff. That "stuff" will turn into ideas for awesome stories only you can write! 

The Importance of Names

When is a tree just a tree? And when is it a poplar, maple, birch, pine, cedar, or Douglas fir? 


Sometimes in a story, a tree serves as a background: "The trees swayed in the wind." "The branches creaked on the dead tree." 


At other times, a particular tree needs its particular name. "The bark on the birch tree peeled off like paper." "He climbed the tall maple in the backyard, hiding in its red leaves." It's the difference between someone calling you by name or saying, "Hey, you!" 


A couple of weeks ago I went for a hike in the Olympic National Forest and took the above photo. Those of us on the hike debated whether the trees with the whitish bark were birch trees or alders. (I still don't know.) 


If I were to put these trees into a story, I'd ask myself if it was important to know what kind of trees they were. If the name was important to the story, I'd head for the nearest computer, nature guide, or forest ranger.


Even if we don't use the tree name in our story, it's good for us writers to know the names of things that surround us. The more we master particular names, the more we understand our world. That way, the world becomes richer, and so do we. 


Find a tree whose name you don't know. Look up the name, and write a description of it in detail. Draw it if you'd like. What color and shape are the leaves? Is the bark black, brown, gray, white, or all of the above? What role could this tree play in a story you're writing? 


Now excuse me while I look up the name of "my" trees.