Secret Weapon

When I need to think of rhymes for an occasional bit of doggerel, I use this tool to find and make up words.

I put this gadget together years ago and printed many copies on my desk top. I've got stray wheels like this stashed in all the places I write...living room coffee table drawer, desk drawer, drawing table, office, and bookshelf. I keep finding new letters to add, which explains the additional consonant blends.

Why don't I use Rhyme.com? It is a fabulous site and I do peruse it on occasion. But I find that turning the dials of the Word Whirl forces my brain to concentrate. Working through the zillions of combinations is like doing cerebral push ups. And to be honest, it's fun.

I just completed section 20 (Ecclesiastes 9:1-10). It's another section jam packed with morose prose so I do my best to lighten things up with doggerel. Tonight I wrote a limerick (not my favorite type of poetry but it fit in this case) and needed words to complete this sentence, "There once was a man without meaning..."

How many words could you come up with that rhyme with meaning? By aligning the letters on the inner wheels to spell the word "__eaning" I spun the outer wheel and came up with:

preening
screening
weaning
dry cleaning
gleaning
queening
leaning
careening
demeaning
intervening

I used three of the above words for one of the strips. Not sure the limerick will make the final editing cut so I won't share it here just yet. But I'm trying to jazz up the text with a juxtaposition of Ecclesiastes, one liners, quips, quotes, and poems.

In this stage of the creative process I'm piling dialog upon dialog, strip upon strip, section upon section, and I am eager to get to the final chapter so I can then reread what I've written. I'm forcing myself not to look back (or ahead) just yet. Once I've written the dialog for all 12 chapters (24 sections) I'll begin the first (of several) edits.

Note to aspiring writers: this probably isn't a good vocation if you don't like words. I don't know any writers real well but I'll bet they like Scrabble, spelling, cross words, word games, reading, and thesauruses.