[Jenna]

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? 

[CaliaMoko]

I'm game! I could use a little distracting inanity.

My adjectives:
stentorian
cool
high
trite
telluric

and my nouns:
whiffler
cloudburst
tree
quilt
ort

My sentence:
The stentorian whiffler created a telluric cloudburst when he waved his cool quilt at the high tree.

 
Senseless, but I believe it meets the requirements.

[Jenna]

 

I don't even know half of those words! Funny. I love supposed mindless fun like this. Thanks for joining in. Now I need to hit the dictionary to understand what you wrote! BTW, the idea was for everyone to work from the same list of words, but this might reveal even more interesting connections. It's certainly proving educational already!

[Jenna]

Note to self -> Whiffler = Waffler - as in the flakey human kind
                      Ort = morsel of food
                      Telluric = terrestrial
                      Stentorian = loud
                      Vicki = classic overachiever  

I have a few more minutes to play at the moment. I'll make a couple more. Pat's version only uses one pair of words to create the sentence or paragraph. My sentence was taking the exercise to the extreme. Vicki's version takes it to the Master's level. We do work to lift each other higher. That's a good thing.

I'm just going to make the word pairs to see what they do together. What the heck. I'll make a chart with both of our sets of words together.

Odd. I've used the chart function here before with no issues but today it's not going so well.

[CaliaMoko]

I don't even know half of those words! Funny. I love supposed mindless fun like this. Thanks for joining in. Now I need to hit the dictionary to understand what you wrote! BTW, the idea was for everyone to work from the same list of words, but this might reveal even more interesting connections. It's certainly proving educational already!

Oh, oops!

And I had slightly the wrong definition in my head for telluric. Not too far off, though. I was thinking of it as "earthy". Less scientific sounding than terrestrial, but I suppose that's my personality showing....

[Sea]

Hi Jenna

you are way ahead in your studying than me lol..l haven't even started on the concept of metaphors in songwriting yet.

not sure if lv even got this right..but here goes

ablaze
halfway
golden
tainted
clearer

noun=

dust
leather
desert
road
shoe

the golden desert dust on the tainted halfway road was ablaze.

[Jenna]

I don't even know half of those words! Funny. I love supposed mindless fun like this. Thanks for joining in. Now I need to hit the dictionary to understand what you wrote! BTW, the idea was for everyone to work from the same list of words, but this might reveal even more interesting connections. It's certainly proving educational already!

Oh, oops!

And I had slightly the wrong definition in my head for telluric. Not too far off, though. I was thinking of it as "earthy". Less scientific sounding than terrestrial, but I suppose that's my personality showing....

I like your definition better. It's more down-to-earth and grounded. 

[Jenna]

Hi Jenna

you are way ahead in your studying than me lol..l haven't even started on the concept of metaphors in songwriting yet.

not sure if lv even got this right..but here goes

ablaze
halfway
golden
tainted
clearer

noun=

dust
leather
desert
road
shoe

the golden desert dust on the tainted halfway road was ablaze.

Well, thanks for posting the list for the day! I don't know that I'm farther ahead or not. Your studies have a different focus than mine at the moment. I've not yet gotten to studying the music of other artists except here and there. I've just been focusing on the how-to's, the detailed nitty-gritty, the granular stuff.

Now for that sentence. I'm just going to pick one pair for this one.

We stood helplessly, mouths agape, watching a tumultuous wind whip Miller's sunbaked sawdust mountain airborne in the exact moment he opened the mill's kiln door for another coal feeding. The dust-laden air grew ablaze with an explosive burst that engulfed the entire mill. Tragic. We incurred tragic losses that mournful day. Our town never recovered.

[diademgrove]

I'm game but a little bit lazy. So I've used Jenna's original nouns and adjectives:

My sentence: The sore car's languid observation.

Am I on the right track?

[Jenna]

You're good, Keith. We're pretty free with the exercise rules, overachieving by using more than one word pair out of the five, but I'd say use as many as you want. It's all about making unexpected connections which happens either way.

[Jenna]

Mindless entertainment calling for anyone in a playful mood today. How about trying some verbs and nouns this time?

Our five verbs are:

stir
coil
cycle
scratch
concentrate

Our five nouns:

penalty
property
bat
muscle
moment

[Martinswede]

This is a shameful experience.
And I didn't even skip class.

Coil up your scratch muscle, concentrate on the bat or else a property based penalty. (?)

It's difficult with verbs + nouns. Maybe verbs + adjectives next time.

[Jenna]

No need to try and get all of the words contained. The exercise just calls for one word pair. We've been over-achieving. So the general idea is like this, using property + coil:

The forested property coiled around the mountain like a constrictor encircles its weekly meal. Lined with hedgerows framing farmed meadows, acres of brambles and nut-bearing shrubs tempted herbivores of all stripes from deep within their canopied leaf and twig shelters for a daily binge and to peek at the sky above.

[Jenna]

An attempt for the overachievers circle . . .

stir, coil, cycle, scratch, concentrate

penalty, property, bat, muscle, moment

With the penalty stirring cycles in his restless mind, the hitter decided it was time to put it aside and concentrate on the moment. After a scratch to quell a running sweat-triggered itch beneath his synthetic uniform, he uncoiled his bicep muscles, tapped the tip of the bat on the corner of home plate, and leaned in for a crack on the ball that sent it soaring over the ballpark into the stands behind second.

[Jenna]

This is a shameful experience.
And I didn't even skip class.

Coil up your scratch muscle, concentrate on the bat or else a property based penalty. (?)

It's difficult with verbs + nouns. Maybe verbs + adjectives next time.

A mighty fine example for a non-native language. We can try verbs + adjectives next if you like.