Writing Without the Me #11
Exercise #29 Cooking with the Dictionary
Here’s another post in this year-long series I’m making myself do so I can become a more disciplined writer! The title pretty much explains it: I had to choose a bunch of words at random from a dictionary (or some other reference book filled with lists of words) and work them into a piece of writing. Here’s the book I chose, followed by the thing I wrote, which is, in turn, followed by the list of words I had to use and some closing thoughts.
“Looking Up”
She was drunk again, galumphing her way down the hallway to her apartment. She and Jared had lived there for 3 years and the mnemonic device she used to remember which unit was theirs still ran through her head. I will be stuck here for the “4C-able” future, haha.
She was a 7th-grade French teacher who loved drinking. He was a film blogger who loved getting pissed on. When they had sex it was a whizbang. They lived with an odd conviviality. Horny enough for each other but there wasn’t much more to their relationship.
She was barely in the door before they began making out. He left Cheeto dust dactylograms all over her clothes, an orange asterism across her ass. Afterward, after his special shower, they’d share a regular one, passing the lavender loofah back and forth and chatting about nonsense like whether naming a talking candelabra “Lumiere” was a little too obvious.
They’d go on to take care of a few more bottles and eventually he’d pass out. She liked to lie on top of him with her arms over her head, creating an anthropomorphic octothorpe, and just stare at the ceiling while she stretched her back and thought.
Her drinking habit was no longer fun and yet it never brought her to the oblivion she craved but never experienced. So she thought of it more as a boondoggle that an actual problem. She wasn't addicted, she just didn't have anything better to do. And climbing into the dry hinterlands seemed more of a chore than an adventure.
The End
These are the words I chose:
Galumph
Loofah
Dactylogram
Asterism
Mnemonic
Octothorpe
Convivial
Whizbang
Boondoggle
Hinterlands
Candelabra
I know some of them must have stuck out in the writing, but which ones? The fun in this one was trying to layer in these words that I know but don’t really use much (except loofah, I suppose) into a short story (character sketch?) that didn’t really call attention to the words. And I only allowed myself one kinda meta/punny/lampshaded use (whizbang) where I purposefully drew attention to the word.
If you’re trying to be a writer too (and who isn’t these days?) I’d recommend this exercise. It’s better than you might think. If you do try it, leave what you wrote in the comments and/or link to where you posted it. I’d love to check it out!
