Your Very Last Goo!

Are you ready to write your novel? Are you ready to get your head wrapped around ideas, your life wrapped around your characters, your thoughts wrapped around your story, and your past all unwrapped for the world to see?

Sounds complicated, doesn't it? Here's some goo for you to see how much work you will need to do:

plot characters challenge/conflict
setting point of view grammar

These are only a few things that you will need to look at. Your plot, characters, and conflict all take place as your story moves, but you need to have a setting and a point of view from the very beginning, and these latter two elements need to remain constant. Your grammar has to be polished. Everything has to come together into a heap that is as beautiful as it is representative of the complexity of life.

Ready to write? You'll ready as you'll ever be, so start thinking of these elements and start getting your story off the ground! It's time to write a novel!

Some Spring Goo to Undo

It's time for you to disentangle and colorize your life! Work on the following goo by pairing up the objects in the first line with the colors in the second line. Do this for different combinations of objects and colors.

roses grass water
red green colorless

That is, your roses can be red, green, or colorless. Your grass can be the same color, and so can your water. Your goal is to write three stories, incorporating all three colors of the object into a plot developed in 1000 words or less. That is, you need to write three separate stories about red, green, and colorless roses; red, green, and colorless grass; and red, green, and colorless water. The roses, grass, or water can be central or incidental to the story. They must simply be there.

When you are done, post your best story in the Comments section, or provide a link to it.

Good luck, happy un-goo-ing, and happy writing!

Undo these Adjectives and Adverbs

It's time to unglue your goo. In this exercise, you will need to use the three adjectives and three adverbs below. Pick one adjective and use it in the same sentence as one of the adverbs. Pair another adjective and another adverb for another sentence. Use the last adjective and adverb as your final pair.

lazy sleepy indifferent

cruelly pathetically unambitiously

When you are done, use these three sentences, each containing an adjective and adverb, and form a story. Your sentences do not have to follow each other. Simple use these three sentences and fashion a story with plot, characters, and settings of your choosing. You have only 500 words at your disposal.

When you are done with the first pairings, return to the goo and make up different combinations of adjective-adverb pairs for your sentences. Try your hand at a new 500-words-or-less story.

When you are done, post your best story in the Comments section, or provide a link to your story. Good luck and happy writing!

A Bit of Holiday Goo!

The holidays are upon us! And they can squash your writing too!

Just before you head off and shop, here's some quick goo that will keep you on your writing toes. Below are three everyday objects, followed by three characteristics of any everyday object. Pair each of the objects with each of the characteristics (making nine total possible combinations). Use all these nine combinations in your very own advertising spree!

You have only 100 words at your disposal to share a story about your experiences with the object (with its assigned characteristic). It doesn't have to be a true story: but it has to be convincing enough to make a sale! This exercise should help you stay alert and still have a great sense of humor, no matter what time of the year.

Ready? Here's your goo!

mug blanket turkey
red warm cheap

When you are done, post your best story in the comments section, or provide a link to your work. Good luck and happy writing!

A Little Storm of Goo

It's time to rearrange the weather and your characters. Your job in this goo exercise is to pair up the following rain variants with a character, and write how that character is affected by the weather. Is the character happy? Sad? How? Why? Elaborate on the character's mood in no more than 300 words.

downpour drizzle hail thunderstorm
professor scientist poet painter

This exercise should help you say the most about your character in as few words as possible. It should also help you explore how your characters can be the product of the weather that surrounds them.

At the end of the exercise, you should have 16 short text snippets. Pick the best one and post it in the Comments section, or provide a link to your work. Good luck, and happy writing!

Look to the Weather for Some Goo

It’s time for you to get some goo on your hands. To fix your little mess up, you need to be creative with your settings. You have four seasons and four weather set-ups, all of which are shown below.

summer winter fall spring
snow sun wind rain

You now need to pair each season with each weather set up, and answer the question: “What would my day be like if we got (WEATHER SET-UP) in (SEASON)?” So you can ask what would happen if you had sun in the winter, rain in the summer, snow in the spring, or wind in the fall.

You have only 100 words for each of the 16 combinations that you will come up with. You need only describe the setting, and you don’t really have to come up with a story (if you can, good for you!). This exercise will help you stretch your creative descriptive genius, no matter what weather you find yourself in.

When you are done, post your best writing in the Comments section, or give your readers a link so that they can see what you came up with. Good luck and happy writing!

Some Goo for the Sky

It’s time to write out goo, and this time, you need to be a bird. Pretend that you are flying through the sky at a certain time (4 of which are specified below) and you can see certain heavenly bodies (4 of which are also specified below). What do you see on earth? What do you feel?

Night midnight noon early morning
Stars moon sun comets

You should mix these up to create a total of 16 entries of, at most, 400 words each. What’s it like to fly through a night of stars? A night with the sun? A noon of stars? An early morning bedazzling with comets?

When you are finished, post your best work in the Comments section, or provide a link to your work. Good luck and happy writing!

Hunting Out Words, Getting a Story 2: Another Goo Exercise

Remember those games when you were little, when you had to find all the little words that were in one big one? For instance, you could use the word BALSAMIC to get words like lab, balm, balsam, or calm. Or you could take the word INTREPID and come up with words such as dire, pet, ripe, or tepid.

Now, it's time to turn word goo into order. You have one word below. You need to extract 10 words from it, BUT you have to use all those words in a one-paragraph story. This may mean that you need to get 10 related words. It might also mean that you need to get 10 unrelated ones and come up with a really crazy tale. In any case, you need to follow these rules:

1.Your new words must be at least four letters long
2.They must all be nouns or verbs, NOT adjectives or adverbs.
3.Your paragraph must not go beyond five hundred words (and that's a pretty big paragraph right there!)

Ready? Your word is: INSTANTANEOUSLY

Post your exercise answers, or a link to your (most likely) gigantic paragraph in the Comments section. Happy word hunting, and happy writing!

Goo on Some Events!

Here are four possible locations:

circus city farm village

Now, here are four possible events:

rebellion party dance elections

Let's play goo!

You need to write descriptive essays that detail strange, quirky happenings as these events take place. In fact, you need to write 16 essays, matching each location with an event. For instance, what happened when there was a rebellion at the circus? What about the party at the circus? The dance at the circus? The same goes for all the events: talk about them and be descriptive!

Your essays must be no more than 150 words each. You need to be concise and yet descriptive at the same time. When you are done, pick your best essay and post it in the Comments section.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Goo on Some Places!

Here are four possible continents that you could set your story in:

Asia Europe North America Africa

Now, here are four possible places that these continents can have:

mountain river ocean hill

Let's play goo!

You need to write descriptive essays that detail the appearances of these four places. In fact, you need to write 16 essays, matching each place with a continent. For instance, what is a mountain in Asia like? What about a river in Asia? The ocean in Asia? The same goes for all the places: talk about them and be descriptive!

Your essays must be no more than 150 words each. You need to be concise and yet descriptive at the same time. When you are done, pick your best essay and post it in the Comments section.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Some Goo-ey Dates

Today’s goo is all about dates. The goal of this exercise is to get you to shift your tone (and change your characters) from date to date, and from historical era to historical era.

You are going to write 16 short dialogues, each no more than 1000 words long. Each dialogue will take place in a specific historical era. Here are your 4 historical eras and 4 pairs of people engaging in dialogue.

Ancient Rome Medieval England Renaissance Italy World War II Germany
Husband and wife Lovers Two children Chance meeting, 2 people

So you need to write about a husband and wife engaged in a dialogue in Ancient Rome; another entry will be about a husband and wife engaged in a dialogue in Medieval England; and so on. Do this for all your pairs of people and historical eras, making sure to suit the dialogue and speaking style to the times in which your dialogue is set.

When you are done, post your best entry in the Comments section, or provide a link to your work. Good luck, and happy writing!

Goo on Some Things!

Here are four possible things that you could encounter in a story:

pen paper book ink

Now, here are four possible characteristics that these things might have:

violet green blue gold

Let's play goo!

You need to write descriptive essays that detail the future of these four things. In fact, you need to write 16 essays, matching each thing with each possible characteristic. For instance, what happened to the violet pen? What about the green pen? The gold pen? The same goes for all the things: talk about them and be creative!

Your essays must be no more than 150 words each. You need to be concise and yet descriptive at the same time. When you are done, pick your best essay and post it in the Comments section.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Goo on Some Characters

Here are four possible characters for a story:

Adam Michael Anita Maria

Now, here are four characteristics that these characters might have:

insane caring pathetic reserved

Let's play goo!

You need to write descriptive essays that detail the backgrounds of these four characters. In fact, you need to write 16 essays, matching each character with each possible characteristic. For instance, what made Adam insane? In another scenario, what made Adam caring? In yet another scenario, what made Adam pathetic? The same goes for all the characters: talk about their lives and what made them assume a particular characteristic, and why they turned out a certain way.

Your essays must be no more than 150 words each. You need to be concise and yet descriptive at the same time. When you are done, pick your best essay and post it in the Comments section.

Good luck, and happy writing!

It's time for a bit of literary cleanup!

Your job, dear writer, is to clean up this mess.

The Literary Trash Fairy decided to scatter five words to the winds. The only way that this mess can be remedied is if you can incorporate all these words into a short story. The short story must be no longer than one thousand (1,000) words. It must be readable. You must not force words into the story for the sake of cleaning the mess up. You can use one word as many times as you want. The important thing is to use the words in their pure form (so that means no conjugation, no pluralization, no singulars, no changes – nothing!) and to have a story that makes sense.

Here are the five words:

elf yellow leaf arrow book

Good luck, and happy writing!

Hunting Out Words, Getting a Story: A Goo Exercise

Remember those games when you were little, when you had to find all the little words that were in one big one? For instance, you could use the word FOREST to get words like tore, rest, for, fore, or foster. Or you could take the word INSTANT apart and come up with tan, sat, sin, tin, or taints.

Now, it's time to turn word goo into order. You have one word below. You need to extract 10 words from it, BUT you have to use all those words in a one-paragraph story. This may mean that you need to get 10 related words. It might also mean that you need to get 10 unrelated ones and come up with a really crazy tale. In any case, you need to follow these rules:

1.Your new words must be at least four letters long
2.They must all be nouns or verbs, NOT adjectives or adverbs.
3.Your paragraph must not go beyond five hundred words (and that's a pretty big paragraph right there!)

Ready? Your word is: TELECOMMUNICATION.

Post your exercise answers, or a link to your (most likely) gigantic paragraph in the Comments section. Happy word hunting, and happy writing!

An introduction to making a mess!

We'll call this exercise GOO. Your job is to make a mess, and then fix it. All you need to do is to follow a few instructions, and then watch how your mess can turn you into a writing whiz. After all, not all messes are bad; and not all messes are un-fix-able. In fact, if you can find order in chaos, you might get yourself a ticket to some great writing.

Conversely, if you can find a way to turn order into chaos – well, you're going to get into rather thorny, complicated issues that might make you go crazy. On the other hand, if you can make drama come out of nothing, then you could turn your drama queen (or king) tendencies into something productive.

So what does goo do? Well, you might get a mess of words, and you might be asked to find something common among them so that you can come up with an essay or a story. You might be asked to unscramble a sentence, or scramble an already decent one to come up with a piece of writing that borders on insanity. Whatever the goo, you can turn it into writing, too!