ATL: Creative Thinking: Create original works and ideas; use existing works and ideas in new ways
As children we love wordplay - we played with words, with rhythm, rhyme.. we instinctively reached for sibilance, for onomatopoeia, fricatives... It is just getting old that took the fun of it away. Giving it labels does not always help... it kills the magic. It is a bit like finger painting! You love smearing the paint on the canvas and then one day your teacher says 'stay in the lines' and ' use a paint brush'.
When I teach art... and I have done a little... I often start with - ' put away your brushes and get your fingers back in'.
We need to remember why we like it if we are to really start to enjoy it again.
So what does that look like in literature?
Try to remember what you liked and then right prose but use these... forget lines and meaning... let the fun do the walking.
Then... when you have finished letting your words write themselves... look back at what you have written and only then try to tease out the meaning... tease out the organisational structures...
How?
The perfect pink otter trotted down the road and fell into a whole new mess when he addressed his friend the skunk, who stunk of petty theft. Give back the goods he said and Fred the skunk skulked off and hid behind the old pigs trough where he would not have been found had not the sudden urge to cough alerted others to his presence.
Then...
Scott, the perpetually petrified otter
Was trotting down the road when
He fell into a whole new mess
When he foolishly addressed
The neighbourhood hoodlum skunk,
Who stunk that morning of petty theft.
"Give back the things you stole" he said.
The skunk eyed him with surprise
Then struck his nose. Bloodied and broken
Scott regretted ever getting involved
And hence resolved to never say a word again
To others and mind his own instead.
But Fred the skunk skulked off.
He hid behind the old pig's trough
Where he might not have been found
Had not the sudden urge to nervously cough
Alerted others to his presence.
Forthwith he was arrested, with the stolen loot,
still in the toes of his oversized boots,
and was found guilty of theft and battery
And Scott - what of him you ask?
He was proclaimed the hero of the hour.
And from that grin we note upon his face
We see that standing up for what is right
And calling out those that do us wrong
Helps us all create a far, far better place
Okay... Not the finest prose in the land but this is just an exercise... you cannot run a marathon without training... and so it is with other things... including words.