Tag: Scrabble

covid 19, New Ideas

Scrabbling for Comments

carolyncordon

Hmm, I was expecting, or at least hoping, to have gained some kind of response from others, in relation to my previous blog post. I know, or at least thought, that Scrabble is a game much loved by wordsmiths … I certainly enjoy playing Scrabble, with its focus on words, placed strategically, surely those are skills of writers!

A large vocabulary is a benefit to both writers and Scrabble players. But knowing words, without having the strategic smarts to place them for maximum scoring options, or having the misfortune to just get useless letters, can lead to bad/losing scores in games, as I well know.

Anyway, even though I posted a poem, with zero responses to it, that won’t stop me writing poetry. I am my first reader of my won poetry, and I am the reader I must satisfy first, before my poems go any further.

And I enjoy writing blog posts too, and having one or two, or ten or twelve readers (or more) of my blog posts is a satisfying thing. I read of bloggers with thousands of readers, and followers, but if I am able to connect, fully connect with few others, I am happy those followers are people of quality, who are, or become my friends, whether or not we will ever actually connect in real life.

I have various fun ways to get my words ‘out there’ another favourite of mine is in being Editor of the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle, the monthly newsletter I put together then have printed, and then pick up and distribute around Mallala and beyond. I also put it up online on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/40710

And of course, I’m still putting together the “Plague Invasion” anthology, and I’m thrilled with the quality of works I’ve received in response to my request for submissions. See more about that here: https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/carolyncordonwriter.wordpress.com/2018

inspiration, New Ideas, writing exercise, writing prompts

Scrabble Inspiration

carolyncordon
Today’s Scrabble game 20 June 2020

My husband (Graham) and I have been playing Scrabble every day or so lately, and while we had almost finished the game in the photo, I had an idea. I often have ideas, some of them big ones, others not so big. Some fun things, some serious ones.

Anyway, I was looking at the various words on the Scrabble board, and thought about what an interesting mix of words we had there. That thought led to the almost inevitable idea of, why don’t I do something with that random mix of words, something fun, for me, and for my writing friends. My writing group and the radio station I’m involved with, have fun with five word challenges, to come up with a winning piece of writing, to win a bottle of wine (for the writing group) or to simply have your words read by someone involved with the PBA FM ‘Words Out Loud’ radio program.

Anyway, my idea is this –

Look at the Scrabble Board, and write something, using as many of these words as possible (perhaps aim at having at least twelve of the words in your piece of writing). Poetry or Prose, Sensible or Silly, Fact or Fiction, go for it! If you write something that leads to an award winning story, or film, please remember where the initial idea came from, and mention my name!

With the blank tiles, one of them is simple – it is a ‘u’ (aqua) and the other is not so simple, it is an ‘e’. You can use the words as they are on the board, or with ‘s’ or ‘ing’ added or removed if you wish , but perhaps no other changes that can’t have been actual words possibly scored for this game. There are a number of ways you may wish to go with this idea. Perhaps you might try writing a piece using only words that are on the board (a very, very short piece of flash fiction). Or you may wish to write something using words from the Scrabble board, but other words as needed, as well. Up to you, of course!

If you enjoy this little writing exercise, please let me know, and I may do it all again, after another game. Graham and I know lots of words, about many, many different things. Some of the words may have been new to one or other of us, and learning new words is always a good thing to come from a good and interesting game of Scrabble!

I’m not saying who won this game, but as far as I can see, on looking back at the scores we have, this game had the highest score for one of the two players, so far. Scrabble is a fun game, and really rewards players who are readers, and who have a wide range of subjects they read about.

I’m going to write a very short piece, using other words as well, and post it in the comments. You might wish to do the same, up to you.

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I ended up with a poem, not a story, but it’s very much a story poem, a narrative poem, scaled right back … I’ve put the poem in the comments section.