Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 23:05:51 EDT From: stuck in the mud Subject: EXERCISE: Rainbow Words Around The Edges What's a new world witout a columbus? It's time for an exercise, time to stretch those little word muscles, think about speling and problems grammar. Let's start again with a story (poem, essay, etc.) in hand (other extremity or electronic equivalent at your indiscretion:-). 1. Read it out load. Slowly, carefully, knotting which place don't seem right. As you read, mark it down. Scrible alll over where ever somethin seem not good to you ear. 2. Fix those palce. Then read it again, looking for rhythm, lookin for rhyme, looking for time, look in for a dime. Play with the words. Let your lips argue with the silly thin thound comin up and out and over the tong. 3. Fix it again. This last time, clean out the silliness, cut out the leftover extras, and make it sing. Get rid of repetititions, watch out for tired phrases (they might fall asleep right there in the middle of your writing, and there you'd be with overworked words exposed to the world--shameful, silly shamus), make those words work. Try that. Three times--once for the ear, once for the lip- smacking lingual excitation, and once for the purging. (My apologies--I have been conned into a laptop with windows95 and magic MSWord, and the silly thing has ruined me. It capitalizes, it complains about my misspellings, it even puts my wandering points in some kind of order. Now if we are lucky today, we may manage to send this in almost reasonable shape.) Starter: (If you want to, start something with this...and go on until you come to an ending.) "Did you ever notice how loud silence is?" she said. (tick, tick, tick, tock, tickety tick pock, goes the little clock that stopped...and they're writing!) tink