I suck at them and I'm setting out to remedy that. I've also lived long enough to know that we take ourselves and life far too seriously much of the time, and so I'm also a fan of games, especially social games, word games, and when you combine the two together it's extra special.
Seeing as how we're all sort of tossed together into this global cauldron bubbling with creative potential, I thought it might be fun to try and build this skill with other fledgling (or experienced) lyricists across the world using some of Pat Pattison's exercises on training the mind to generate those unexpected connections. Is anyone else game? I can't think of a better place to try it out. Thinking of the untapped wealth of life experience and creative energies present here, my guess is we'd see some real gems come out of this process.
Let's make it fun, easy, and not very taxing to keep it engaging, even on the fly.
The first exercise is to gather five interesting adjectives and five interesting nouns. Pair them together and write a sentence or paragraph based on these new connections. Easy. Quick. Possibly comical.
I'll post the first set and the first sentence to get the ball rolling, it's all I have time for at the moment. So for today let's try these possible word pairings:
Adjectives:
Mammoth
Chunky
Languid
Boundless
Sore
Nouns:
Coal
Arithmetic
Snail
Car
Observation
Now I'll choose one from each category for the sentence:
The mammoth snail used chunky arithmetic to run his coal car.
Okay, a little overzealous, but it was fun. I'm a dork. Any questions?