Writing — Not just work but also fun

“Today is life — the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today… Shake yourself awake… Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.” 

Dale Carnegie

So far this month, the focus of “Learn Something New” has been work-related. We’ve looked at the importance of learning how to market, explored the idea of generalist vs. specialist, and shared ideas on finding and tracking sources. 

Work, work, work. Blah, blah, blah… 


Today is going to be all about fun. Why? Because to keep our love for writing alive, (and I assume you love it. Otherwise, why are you doing it?), we have to periodically inject some fun into the mix. We have to live our writing life with gusto, to play a bit with Dale Carnegie’s quote. Otherwise, our writing gets stale, we get stale and everything suffers. 

So in this post, I am going to share with you some of the exercises I use in my “Fun With Words” workshop. Why? So that you can learn all over again why you have chosen this writing life and how much fun it is to exercise your creativity muscle!

And I invite those of you who play along to share your responses below!

First activity: Give these old aphorisms new endings: 

• A bird in the hand … 
• A friend in need …   
• A penny saved is …   
• A stitch in time …   
• Absence makes the heart… 
• All good things...

Second activity: Using these opening lines as your starting point, spend five minutes writing the rest of the scene. 

• “What do you want?” 
• “Sorry. It’s just not working for me any more.” 
• “I left it right there and now it’s gone.” 
• “First, you’ll need a large, very sharp knife. Myself, I prefer a cleaver.” “
• “Hurry up! We don’t have much time!” 
• “To the best of my recollection, he wasn’t part of the group.”