I’ve been taking a break from longer works to explore a new medium for me: ABC books. I’ve been playing with different ones and find the process rather fun and challenging. I can often crank one out in an evening or two, so I feel like I’m being productive.
I do wish I could write macros. I’d write one to generate the entire alphabet in “A is for” format. As it is, I’ve just been opening my last manuscript and deleting all the words for each letter. Doesn’t take THAT long, but it is a smidge annoying.
I’m not just listing random words or even words within a theme. I do pick a theme, but I try to use them to tell a story, imagining what an illustrator might do with these clues. It’s a nice exercise in brevity and simplicity.
For a writer, I’m not that good at coming up with specific words. I’m horrible at Scrabble, Boggle, Quiddler, any word game. I spend a lot of time at these sites:
http://phrontistery.info/a.html
With Word Hippo I use the “What is another word for” function a lot, since I know what MEANING I want, but can’t always think of a synonym beginning with the appropriate letter.
Phrontistery I love for the wonderful obscure words, AND that it lists the definitions right there. So many sites I ran across would give you a list of words by letter, but no definitions! Downside is the words here are rather obscure, but why not stretch kids’ (and parents’!) vocabulary?
No idea if these will go anywhere, publication-wise, but at least I’m having fun!
In other news, I FINALLY emptied the last box in my office! Hope to resume my recap of the great office redesign soon.
Amie Rose Rotruck 