The other day I discovered a post on Chip’s Quips that included the following:

Paul answered my Blogging Tips meme-tag with a veripun: “Persistence is fertile.”

veripun, n., a truth embodied in a pun. From L. verus, “true” + “pun”. I just made that up.

This particular made-up word really tickled me for one simple reason: unlike many other made-up words I’ve seen, it would be very easy to mistake for a real word that you just hadn’t stumbled across before. (Not to mention it’s just a cool concept all around.)

Today, make up a dictionary entry for a made-up word. But do everything you can to make the term and its definition seem as real as possible. Also try to make it a word for a concept that you think really should be represented by a single term—something that our language has overlooked until now, or something that we haven’t had reason to quantify in a single word before now. All ‘real’ words were made-up by someone; try to come up with something so useful and vocally interesting that you could actually imagine it being incorporated into the language.

I’ve fallen for Dionys Moser’s desert photos. They are some of the most striking, beautiful, colorful works I’ve ever seen. Every single one of them could spawn an entire world or story. Today, write a scene that takes place in the following image (click through for the larger version) or, if you prefer, one of Moser’s others:

This morning I discovered a site called Disgraceland, PRC. To quote from the page,

Once upon a time in a land called Xi Pu, just west of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province in the People’s Republic of China, there was a tourist theme park… The World Landscape Park. As a business venture it failed, and today the park lies abandoned and decaying. Personally, I think it’s a lot more interesting this way than it could ever possibly have been when it was open.

The site is filled with a series of curious photographs of this unusual place, including such oddities as banyan trees built of concrete and rebar(!), and of course the requisite irreverent commentary. The place is largely deserted, a sort of cultural ghost town, and contains some fairly strange sights, such as the following:

The accompanying commentary reads,

The Tomb of the Unknown Exhibit. What was it? Where did it go, and how, and why? Is this proof of ancient astronauts visiting the Earth and taking home souvenirs?

Today, narrate your own walk-through of a derelict theme park meant to represent cultures from around the world. Here are some options you might take:

• If you have artistic talent, sketch the exhibits instead of just narrating them. Or, collect images from the internet and use them.
• Use either the real world or a fictional one. Pick a particular culture to view the world’s cultures through the eyes of.
• Be totally serious or completely tongue-in-cheek—your choice.

Word Nerd

I seem to be on a roll with the world-building exercises, so I see no reason to stop now! Perhaps I’m feeling inspired by the various world-building articles I’ve read recently, even though they were both aimed at roleplayers: Case Study in Stealing from History (by my husband) and An Interesting Nexus (by our business partner).

One thing that I think gets left out of many fictional societies is the presence of societal obsessions. Let’s face it—we’ve got ‘em in spades. Ask what the modern society of the USA is obsessed with and you’ll get some pretty quick answers from almost anyone: weight (or physical attractiveness); celebrity; wealth. A society might be obsessed with honor, aging, respect, a particular religion, social class, its ruling body, hard work, societal advancement, noble titles, a guild system connected with artisan crafting, particular artisan crafts, physical well-being or fitness, self-defense, etc.

Look at the movie “300″ for a good example—the society depicted was obsessed with martial prowess, to the point that calling someone a politician was a sneer, displaying any kind of weakness was practically forbidden, and physical deformity was reason enough to kill babies. This obsession shaped their entire society. Note that this was not a baseless obsession, either. These men were descended from slaves, accustomed to having to be tougher than everyone around them in order to survive and deeply proud of their ability to keep themselves and their families free. There were strong historical reasons for how their society took shape in the manner it did.

When next you work on a fictional society, ask yourself what its obsessions are. How deep do those obsessions run, and how do they shape the lives of ordinary members of that society? What historical developments created these obsessions, and where do you see them potentially going?

My recent review of The Vermont Cheese Book got me thinking about world-building, oddly enough. My husband, who recently wrote Case Study in Stealing from History, an article on campaign world-building for roleplaying games (but that applies quite well to writing fiction, too) has in fact created a game world that I find fascinating and very immersive. One of the things that stands out is that the major city I’m familiar with in it has a distinctive trade, commerce and production profile.

Let’s go back to that book review for a moment. It’s a celebration of all the artisan and farmstead cheese-makers that have taken up residence in Vermont and who make its cheeses unique and special. Some of them use sheep’s milk, goat’s milk, or any of a variety of types of cow’s milk. Some raise their own herds while others buy from neighboring farmers. Some make blue cheese while others make washed-rind cheese, soft cheese, semi-soft, or perhaps a good sharp cheddar. They all have a couple of things in common, however. They all share a passion for what they do, and they all strive to make and market the very best product they can.

Let’s look at another book I reviewed recently—The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Coffee and Tea. This book included a great deal of detail about the various locations in which people are dedicated to growing and producing the best coffees and teas, and how they go about creating the specialty drinks that we come to know and love.

Now back to that game world of my husband’s that I mentioned. One thing a particular major city, Pagament, is known for is its unusual glass-blowing techniques. The glass-blowers’ guild produces a special type of glass that no one else has been able to duplicate. Because of this they wield a fair amount of economic influence, and it also makes them a tempting target for anyone trying to attack the major trade and port city’s economic standing. The guild’s trade secrets are closely guarded, which also sets the stage for intrigue. Even if you never directly make use of these possibilities, just having such a backdrop makes your world seem far more “real” and immersive, whether we’re talking about a roleplaying game campaign world or a writer’s world of fiction.

So today, spend a little time thinking about the artisans in your game world. What do they produce? What are their specialties? How do they take pride in their work? What secrets do they guard, and how? What role do they play in their local economies? How do they differ by locale, and why? What makes one region better for, say, cheese-makers, while another appeals to coffee-growers?

Needs More Coffee

Children’s book authors Glen and Karen Bledsoe have helpfully provided a set of writing prompt generators. One provides a phrase (”the [adjective] [noun] that went [verb/phrase]“). For example:

The shy scratching post that went fishing

The second provides three random items, to be combined in a story. For example:

A zucchini squash, a fishing rod, and a Tarot deck.

The final generator is a complex piece that provides a plot out of the following building blocks: protagonist, antagonist, setting, goal, an important event, and an important object.

Today, use one of the above examples, or go to the page and randomize your own. Enjoy, and pay a visit to the Bledsoes’ page frequently!

Gravity Wins

Click through the below thumbnail to take an up-close look at an intense school of fish.

Translate the clustering of individuals into something that has nothing to do with a school of fish. Free-associate off of the imagery, the herd-like motion, the vast numbers, or whatever gets you going and write a story, a poem, a character sketch, a journal entry, a section of memoir, a travelogue, or anything else that comes to mind. If you prefer to work with the visual, print out the photo, paste it into the center of a large piece of paper, and paste other images around it in whatever way makes sense to you—and see what larger truth emerges from the individual pieces.

This morning I found an unusual portrait composed of other elements. Sometimes you can elicit a whole new level of creativity from yourself by working in a new medium, and composing your work of unusual elements. Write a story that consists only of haikus, images, or magazine advertisements. If you normally journal only in words, work on a mixed-media journal. Create a portrait of one of your fictional characters out of pieces of images of other people, from art or photographs. Tell a tale through recipes, sound bytes, book titles, timelines, mementos… add your own ideas in the comments if you’d like!

Pushing yourself to think and act in a totally different medium or structure than usual can expand the boundaries of your creativity in ways that can surprise and shock you.

Journaling can provide a wealth of benefits on levels both personal and professional. What place does it hold in your life? What sorts of thoughts do you transcribe in your journal? What benefits do you personally derive from journaling? What more would you like to do with it that you don’t yet?

If you don’t keep up with your journaling—either at all, or as much as you’d like—then write about that. Write about what you’d like to do with journaling; where you see it taking you. Write about the variety of things you might journal about, and if you can, trick yourself into segueing from there into actually writing about them.

I recently found a wonderful blog of inspiring and thought-provoking quotations and such: Travis Eneix. In particular the following quote caught my attention:

Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. Once you have determined the spiritual principles you wish to exemplify, abide by these rules as if they were laws, as if it were indeed sinful to compromise them. Don’t mind if others don’t share your convictions. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer.
— Epictetus

Today, do one of the following:

• Write about an ideal you’d like to get serious about. Write about how you might make it a rule of your life. Write about how you can abide by it as though it was the core of your deepest religion.
• Do the same as above, but from the point of view of a fictional character you’d like to write about.
• Write up a set of ideals as though they were the laws of a fictional land. Be as idealistic, optimistic, and grandiose as you like.