Fishing for Word Pictures

Recently a sweet but slightly delusional friend of mine suggested that I teach a workshop on word pictures. I laughed. She said she was serious. I laughed like a talk show host with a dud guest.

“I don’t really know how I come up with word pictures,” I told her. “How could I possibly teach someone else what I don’t know myself?”

But in the following weeks the notion kept surfacing. I tried to reel in the flopping idea only to lose it once again to the depths of my murky subconscious.

Finally, when I’d given up fishing for inspiration, it landed in my boat all shiny and slick. The only problem? Well, it was a Minnow of an idea. Not some big, impressive Marlin leaping from the ocean with power and grace.

With a smirk, I told my friend I’d discovered the evolution of my word pictures.

“Great,” she said, “I’ll get on the phone and set up a workshop.”

I snickered. “Don’t you want to hear my brilliant idea first?”

“Sure!”

“Okay.” I gave her a classic you-asked-for-it grimace. “You think about the object, emotion, or action you want to describe. You get it squarely in your head.”

“Uh huh.”

“The first thing that comes into your mind is a cliché.”

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t use that.”

At this point I deserved a smack, but my friend—who is Wal-Mart truck loads nicer than me—simply said, “You’re going to have to come up with a little more than that.”

Awhile later, we went out to dinner and she helped me brainstorm my “workshop.” It’s still in progress. It doesn’t even get to wear a “Coming Soon” banner. But, eventually, I hope to have something to share—maybe on the order of a rainbow trout—a teaching model that’s interesting, digestible, and beneficial.

Black Friday

This month I decided to do NaNoWriMo. Unfortunately, my life decided to do something else. So much for progress. *sigh* Because of these turn of events, I’m now officially pegging the end of my NaNoWriMo days as “Black Friday.”

The phrase “Black …” was originally associated with catastrophic events, such as the stock market crash of 1929 (Black Tuesday) and the great financial crisis of 1869 (Black Friday). The first use of “Black Friday” in retail terms occurred in 1966, when the Philadelphia police department dealt with a mad rush of shoppers and traffic in Center City (downtown) the day after Thanksgiving. However, the term didn’t catch on nationwide unit 1975 when retail madness spread throughout the country, causing several well-known newspapers to coin the day “Black Friday;” thus, the tradition began.

So what does all this have to do with NaNoWriMo and my writing? Nothing, really. Except, in order to make my 50,000 November word goal, I would have to type as quickly and madly over the next few days as shoppers shop on Black Friday. And that, my fellow writers, just ain’t gonna happen.

I have given myself grace, however. I made it to approximately 20% of my writing goal. As far as shopping? I’m at 0%. One Black Friday is all I can handle for now.



(If you have a “Black Friday” experience to share—whether it be writing or shopping—I’d love to hear about it.)