The Word

Creating Stories From a Word

be entertained, join in the creating, or both!

I Write Stories, But This is For ALL ART-FORMS!

Today’s Word & Story

  • Boîte

    The details were undoubtedly off. Linus was sure of that. His mind was fuzzy as if the connections between things were missing, but the details were there, and they were just… off.

    He sat at a table, alone, with a nice white tablecloth and a small candle burning in the middle. An empty plate, besides a few crumbs and smears of a brown sauce upon it—remnants of a meal eaten—lay before him. At the seat to his right, another plate had a few french fries and ketchup left on it. 

Click the story title to read on… or read them all here

The word of the day inspires daily creations in this new challenge! Join in!

The Idea & Challenge:

Take a “word of the day,” every day, and turn it into a short story, a drawing, a musical composition, poem, whatever! Inspired by the word and definition, create something, and post it in under an hour.

Read Them All Here.

The Goal:

Bring a little more art and entertainment into the world, and hone our skills as writers, musicians, dancers, and so on, in a fun way.

Join in for the art and entertainment, or to share some of your talents with the world. Either way, I hope you tag along for the ride!

Get THE WORD Every Day!

Enjoy a One-Minute Story, Learn a New Word, and Create With Me! Delivered to you every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

Where Did This All Start?

A long time ago…

Seriously though, about 4 years ago I had this idea out of nowhere. This was when I was beginning to play with the idea of wanting to write a novel. I thought, “What if I take my daily ‘word-of-the-day’ email and just write something from it?”

Seemed like fun, and so I sat down the next morning with my morning coffee and looked at my first word:


Bildungsroman

Noun

  1. A type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist.

Are you freakin’ kidding me?!

First off, the word took me a full minute to figure out how to actually pronounce it, lol, but then I stared at that definition! My whole idea was to use this morning exercise to get myself into writing again, and to hone my chops up a bit. Now, out of the gate, the word means a novel concerning the development and maturing of a protagonist!

I wrote my story beginning, and then from there, every day turned into writing a chapter of this novel I began on day one. Every word I got in the morning seemed to be paving my way towards the end of this book I hadn’t even thought of yet.

About ten days in, I decided I’m going to sit and plan this novel out, and write it! A year later and it faded into the past, not forgotten, but not on my list of priorities.

Time Jump!

Fast forward 4 years, until now-ish.

It’s February 2020 and I’m falling out of love with my second novel attempt. My mystery story about a girl named Jewel. I’m seeing it as pretty simple in terms of plot, and also I know that in my heart I really want to write sci-fi and fantasy. Those are my favorite stories. I have my first draft done, which was an awesome achievement, but I can’t get through the second draft.

I’m explaining this internal struggle I’m having with my wife, Victoria, telling her how I’m also feeling this pull or attraction back to that first novel I started writing four years earlier.

“Remember how that all started?” I say.

“No, I don’t remember,” she answers with a tilt to her head.

I explain all about the word of the day and that “perfect” word on day one that set me off and running. She remembers now, and we revel at how cool that was.

Victoria is great and encouraging and supportive and tells me to follow my heart. She gets up to go to the bathroom and I instinctively grab my phone and start opening my email. I glance at the only email I have, and it’s my ‘word-of-the-day’ sent by wordgenius.com.

My heart skips a beat as I look at the word:


Bildungsroman


No freakin’ way. (Ok, I may not have said “freakin” this time)

I just explained the story to Victoria, and it’s the same exact word. Also, who has heard of this word? It’s ridiculous and can’t imagine ever using it in any of my writing. I guess I have now!

A few days later, I returned to that old novel but wasn’t feeling it either. Let’s just say I’ve come a long way as a writer since then! But, I did decide to bring back my ‘word-of-the-day’ writing exercise and see where it leads.

And, hell yeah, it’s inspired a brand new novel idea that I think is unbelievable. I’m halfway through my brainstorming and outlining of it and can’t wait to start writing. Here are the word and my brief story starter that sparked the new novel idea.

Crazy Magic

Maybe I’m crazy for walking away from a completed first draft of a novel; from four and a half months of writing, and months longer of slowly trying to get a second draft. Almost a full year of commitment.

It’s quite possible, but I want magic in my life and in my writing and in my work. I want work to feel incredible, and if it’s not, then what’s the point? Plus, if you read this whole story I wrote here, and you can’t see the magic in the timing and coincidence of it… then, maybe you’re the crazy one 😜

I can’t wait to deliver this new novel, because I can feel it in my heart more than the other one how much I’m in love with it. IN LOVE with it.

There’s nothing like being in love with everything in your life.

I hope this challenge opens up a similar experience for you, leaves you inspired, and just enjoying life. It’s all about having some fun and exploring our endless depths of creativity. I look forward to seeing your submissions in the comments!

Get THE WORD Every Day!

Enjoy a One-Minute Story, Learn a New Word, and Create With Me! Delivered to you every Tuesday and Thursday morning.