A Zusky, Cytanic Adventure
By John Vorhaus | March 26, 2016 |
Here’s what I do for weird fun and lexical exercise: I take lists of words I don’t know and weave them into stories, defining the words in context as I go. I’m flexing two creative muscles here, one that develops story and one that exploits language. I use this challenge and ones like it to shed clarity on my creative process, which, at its heart, is a strategy of setting a goal and then acting on it. In everything I write, I set goals – I frame the exercise – then I act, and that’s how I get things done. Pretty simple. It’s effective. It’s made more effective through exercise, and that’s why I bother to spend the time turning this – after-wise, babblement, cycopede, daggle-tail – into this:
“After-wise, when I had a chance to reflect on it, I realized it was all babblement from the start, her way to confuse and betray me. In all the cycopede of human knowledge there is no word vile enough to demean that daggle-tail minx.”
And that’s why I invite you to, too. I’ll give you the words, and you see what fun you can have.
(I’m sure you can think of a thousand reasons not to try this game, everything from it’s dumb to I might fail. For now let’s say that none of those apply. Just have some fun.)
Here’s our list.
aryle
gilligaskin
mastodite
pellicle
quater
salp
torsades
weazand
xyster
zusky
We might kick it off with something like, “Lord Robert Bruce, twenty-third Earl of Aryle, slipped into his custom-tailored gilligaskin and affixed his tie with a mastodite pin.” After that, we’d be off and running, all the way through the whole list, making up fresh, new stories and stylish new words. For me, half the fun would be deciding what the words mean, the other half would be discovering the tale, and the other other half would be impressing my friends with my suddenly zusky vocabulary. Even if this sort of fun is unfamiliar to you, go ahead and try it. Remember that the point of such exercises is never to gain good outcomes but to simply to experience our creativity in new and different ways.
Hang on a second there, JV. By any chance is this really just you trying to get everyone hooked on your own obsession with linguistic gymnastics and random words?
Well, first of all, weird italic interlocutor, of course I want everyone hooked on my thing. That’s my mission – but it’s every writer’s mission. Getting people hooked on our thing is how we earn, and also how we change the world. Beyond that, writer to writer, I’m just a big fan of creative workouts. They keep my mental muscles strong and my creative brain happily engaged. Plus they give me a cheap win. For not much effort and no creative risk, I get to see myself succeed at a writing task (because this one is not hard), and that’s something no writer I know, my sad self included, can ever get enough of. So yeah, weird italic interlocutor, I think there’s plenty of benefit in the exercise – it’s not just me showing off. But if I bend someone to my bent perspective along the way I won’t say no to that.
Sometimes I stare at the far horizon of my work and my heart just quails. It’s too many pages, too many words. I’ll never get there. I’ve forgotten what there even looks like. Writer’s block has me by the throat. That’s when games like this really come in handy. They engage my creativity, distract me from my limitations, prime my dopamine pump, and give me an easily won feeling of whoop-de-do! Then I’m back on track and back on trek to the distant horizon of my manuscript’s end. I feel better and I write better. That’s a win for me. It will be a win for you, too.
And what’s better than one win? Two.
Seriously, if you play this game even once more than once, you’ll get so much more out of it because you’ll know how it works. And then your twin imaginations of what might this word mean? and where can this story go? will really take flight. And that’s part of good practice, too. You try a thing because it’s new, then you do it again to get good at it. Those are two different creative goals that happen to be served by the same game.
With all that in mind, here are some more words, one for every letter of the alphabet, which you can use in alphabetical order, or not, as you see fit. I like to enforce alphabetical order, or perhaps reverse alphabetical order, because I find that the more closely I constrain the exercise, the easier it is to do. But you’ll find your way. Water finds its level. Or, as they say around here, “The azoth scrapes off the brulzies.“
azoth
brulzies
cytanic
dargest
eyewire
flaudant
gipple
hoyden
ignibrate
jackonet
kreits
ligara
mirdango
neymald
oxexe
pecanada
qualted
ryot
skewdad
trompot
uject
vucuder
wandolin
xystoi
yirth
zabak
If you’re wondering where these words came from, some I made up, some I captured free-range, and some I harvested from my book A Million Random Words, which is a real thing and not an April Fool’s joke. Of course you don’t have to use my words. You’re free to make up your own.
Anyway, I’m weird, I admit it. It’s really fun for me to play with new words. I put a fair amount of care into it, and I get a lot out of it. Like when I made up neymald just now, I was all excited that it returned zero hits on Google. (“Zero hits?” I hear you say. “JV, that’s cytanic!“) If such things excite you then you’re weird like me; if other things excite you then you’re weird like you. But know what excites you, and know how to act on it. Know your goals and use your strategies to achieve them. Incorporate creative exercise into your practice.
And show us all how your story turns out!
What about you? What tricks do you use to get out of a creative funk or just have wordy good fun? How do you “practice” your practice of writing? Do you have word games you love? Challenge me with them. I’ll rise to the challenge, you betcha.
[coffee]
John Vorhaus has written seven novels, including Lucy in the Sky, The California Roll, The Albuquerque Turkey and The Texas Twist, plus the Killer Poker series and (with Annie Duke) Decide to Play Great Poker. His books on writing include The Comic Toolbox, How to Write Good and Creativity Rules!
My tricks?
I like to hoyden the jackonet until it kreits. Once the mirdango has qualted, I trompot the eyewire, ujext the screwdad, and yirth the pecanada. After about 20 ryots (10 brulzies in cytonic time), I wandolin my zybok and inigbrate.
Unless I don’t.
Seem to be turning into a logophile at the moment as preparing a series of A to Z Challenge posts for April. Each day I aim to start my post with letter of alphabet starting at A, then moving to B.
My additional challenge is that my theme is a short 26 word episode of a story each day, using every letter of the alphabet – Q, X and Z are proving the hardest.
Maybe I might be pinching something from here.
I’ve already used ‘xyster’ in my challenge as it fitted perfectly…
THE HUNTER’S PERIL
Azoth took a cautious look at the bellowing brulzies down below his rocky perch. He gazed through his cytanic field glasses and focused on the dargest beast, which had a magnificent eyewire ruff of hair that waved in the flaudant breeze. The black-eyed behemoth had a strong gipple and pranced with menacing, hoyden grace.
Azoth began to ignibrate his worn by deadly jackonet with slow, quiet movements. Those brulzies were a skittish lot. He adjusted the kreits on the jackonet and gently feathered the ligara. He squeezed the mirdango and the neymald flew straight and true to lodge in the beast’s forehead.
Azoth let out a shout of joy. “I got you, you dirty oxexe!”
The whole pecanada of brulzies snorted and bellowed and took off across the grassy qualted, kicking up chunks of ryot weed with their razor-sharp skewdad hooves.
“He will make a tasty meal in my trompot,” muttered Azoth. “Now to skin him and cut up the meat.” He took his shiny, sharp uject from its scabbard and thought his pretty wife could make herself a warm winter vucuder from the skin.
He leapt from rock to rock down the stony ledge until he reached the silent, bloody creature.
Azoth shouted with triumph. The village would praise him tonight for his mighty hunting. “You,” he taunted the fallen beast, “I will make myself a new wandolin from your horns and an xystoi to play it with!” He was reaching for one of the massive horns when the animal lashed one of its front legs across his body and ripped him from throat to yirth with its razor-sharp skewdad.
Azoth fell to the ground. As his blood flowed out on the ground, he remembered his grandfather, old Zabak, who always warned him to make sure an animal was dead before he got too close. Azoth moaned his last breath. It was too late to heed his grandfather’s wise words. He knew his pride had cost him his life. Now his pretty wife would wear her new vucuder for another man.
Wow! Good job, Gale.
NIGHT OF THE VIOLENT MIRDANGO
“Oh, Lord Azoth.” Miss Brulzies laid the palm of her soft little hand on his cytanic dargest. “That is just the most impressive, the most cytanic dargest I’ve ever come across.”
Adjusting his eyewire, Lord Azoth said with a flaudant gipple, “You little hoyden. You knew wearing that blue ignibrate would jackonet my kreits. And the rose sticking out of your ligara… Ye gads! I cannot restrain myself. Will you glide across the floor with me in a violent mirdango?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” And then, “But do you think we should? Neymald stands by the punch bowl, and his oxene eyes hint he’s already pecanada, and we should not qualt him. You know–you must know–that our mirdango, especially if we perform it violently, will ryot him into committing a skewdad.”
“Phooey on Neymald and his skewdads,” said Lord Azoth. “You are my trompot, you little hoyden, not Neymald’s, and I will mirdango with you as violently as I please. Neymald will just have to uject it.”
And with that, he readjusted his eyewire, shifted his dargest, the one she had called cytanic, and, taking her hand, escorted her to the vucuder.
There, to a melancholy tune played by a wandering wandolin, they executed their violent mirdango.
Neymald, stymied, could do nothing but hang over the punchbowl, very pecanada and now very, very qualted indeed. But his pecanada was so advanced, he couldn’t think of even one decent skewdad.
Able only to stand there and xystoi, “Yirth!” he cried, and sighed. “Now I shall have to challenge Azoth to a zabak. But without a cytanic dargest, I’ll surely lose.” Then, of a sudden, he ideated: There’s more than one way to win a zabak.
He filled a cup and proffered it to the hoyden, her face aglow with the innocence of youth, wending her way toward the punch bowl.
“My dear, what a lovely green ignibrate you are decked out in,” he said. “And is that a dargest you carry, its handle toward my hand?” He bowed. “May I have this mirdango? I promise you—we will be violent. And afterward, perhaps you will allow me to hold your dargest. It is the most cytanic dargest I have ever come across.”
Bravo, Ms. Waller for your wargantic majestyness of a story. Bravo.
I think about how many different themes I can glean from the lyrics of Stairway to Heaven.
John, you ol’ xyster!
I’m feeling a bit zusky and don’t have the wherewithal to write a story from the alphabetical list, but it sounds more fun than a weazand full of torsades — and you know how everybody loves torsades. Except the Quaters. I think it’s against their religion. From what I understand, the males keep their gilligaskins! The barbarians.
Well, it’s about bedtime on the east coast, so I’m slipping into my aryle pjs and calling it a night. Great exercise!
Pelliclely,
Swifty
This turned out to be mirdango fun! Thanks for gippling me out of a writing xyster :)
So many lovely responses. I’m just sitting here reading them all and laughing out loud — plus loving the universe for giving me such imaginative and inventive playmates — guys and gals who get the game. Thanks for that. So many great lines but the one I was moved to copy/paste was this one: “ripped him from throat to yirth with its razor-sharp skewdad” A, I didn’t even know I had a yirth, and B, Ahh, skewdad!
For related fun, check out my new book, Banana Pants Crazy, half funny, half serious, half strange, the third half is free.
Thanks for playing. We’re DEFINITELY doing something like this again.