|

LIBRARY

Wild Word Friday! You don’t get much wilder than a LIBRARY. What? Really, you don’t. You can pull a book from a LIBRARY shelf and become Frankenstein or Hannibal the Cannibal or Alexander the Great. You can be a pioneer child in the big woods of Wisconsin or find a hidden treasure large enough to make you into the…

|

CACHINNATION

Wild Word Friday! Last week I was rereading one of my favorite novels, JANE EYRE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Charlotte Bronte. In the part of the novel when Jane was employed as a governess, she would hear an eerie laugh in the middle of the night. She described that laughter as CACHINNATION. I’ve read JANE EYRE at…

|

MORDANT

Wild Word Friday! Eons ago someone (I’m guessing it was a woman.) discovered that if you boil certain plants in water, the resulting “tea” can dye string or yarn or fabric. Archaeologists have found bits of tartan plaid fabrics in central Europe that have been carbon-dated to circa 800 B.C.  [Women’s Work by Elizabeth Wayland…

|

WARP

Wild Word Friday! Years ago, my sister gave me a wonderful gift. She taught me how to weave. Weaving has been a joy in my life ever since, especially in winters, when I have the time and space to bring out my loom and WARP it. WARPing is the process of stretching the lengthwise or WARP…

|

TOURNAMENT

Wild Word Friday! My father is an avid golfer. At age 84 he can still come close to shooting his age – last week scoring an 85 on 18 holes. I’m proud of him, and I know one of the disappointments of his life is that I am NOT a golfer or an athlete by…

|

CHEMISE

Wild Word Friday! Once upon a time a long, long time ago, (when I was in the fourth grade), my mother styled my hair into CHEMISE bangs and I wore a baby blue CHEMISE dress. The dropped-waist-box-pleats look was really in, and I was a fourth-grade fashion maven. At least I thought I was. For those…

|

ORCHESTRA

My Uncle Bill (Wilson Sawyer) was a symphony conductor and composer. Thus, ORCHESTRA was an early word in my vocabulary, and I can’t remember a time in my life when music wasn’t a central joy. I wasn’t very old when I realized that to be a good musician you have to have a gift of physical…

|

ORANGE

Wild Word Friday! My niece Amy and I had a little conversation a few weeks ago about the aggravation of trying to fit a word into a poem when that word has nothing that rhymes with it. Of course, the word ORANGE was the first one Amy mentioned. It didn’t take me long after our conversation to decide…

|

LAVENDER

Wild Word Friday! In spring 2010 I gathered my courage and bought a LAVENDER plant for my garden. The reason that the purchase was brave (Or maybe foolish – have you noticed that sometimes bravery and foolhardiness are mistaken for one another?) was because I live in a Zone 3 to 4 area for plants and LAVENDER is a…

|

PLAGERISM

Wild Word Friday! Once I was interviewed for inclusion in a how-to book about writing. A few days later, I reread the interview and came across a sentence that I was afraid I had read elsewhere. I went through all my books on writing (and that’s quite a stash) but couldn’t find it. Finally I contacted the author of the how-to book…

End of content

End of content