Words are endlessly fascinating. Naming is so interesting and important. I read recently about a book by John McPhee, The Crofter and the Land. McPhee visited the Hebridean island of Colonsay where his family originated. He discovered that every beach, gully, cliff and rise of land has a name. On a tiny island of only 138 … Continue reading Land Words
Words. Keep looking out for them. Collect them. List them. Value them. Stop worrying about WOW words and find the word that does the job. You know that nouns and verbs work hard for you. You have specialist knowledge -names of things you know well. Use them. So keep on gathering and listing. Don’t just … Continue reading Be specific
Where would we be without our hands? When I have lots of things to think about, I always find that I suddenly need to keep my hands busy to somehow help my mind work through all my thoughts. I often knit or crochet or just stroke my dog's fluffy tummy. Throughout the day, we turn … Continue reading These are my hands
Today I'm working from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones (1986) and thinking about the power of individual words. There's a lot of chatter in primary education about 'wow words' and 'powerful words', but what on earth does that actually mean? It's easy to make your writing sound like it's swallowed a thesaurus; what's more … Continue reading The power of words
I love the alphabet, for all its interesting shapes and for the way it gives me a frame for a list. And I don’t love it, because sometimes it is hard to find words for one letter, and then there are too many words for another letter. Today, begin by writing out the alphabet. You … Continue reading Alphabet
Let’s collect words today. When we begin our Writing Club, we always think of words. Sometimes we each write them down in a list. Sometimes we keep one or two in our head. Then we share our words, one each around the circle. You can collect words in your head, in a list in your … Continue reading Words
Writing Box 