Julie Esther Fisher
Turn to Language
Feeling stuck, or just need some extra inspiration? Take it from language itself. When you’re in need of a spark, pull out your thesaurus, a fresh piece of paper, and embark on making lists of randomly chosen words that hold resonance for you. These may be forgotten words, suddenly rediscovered and embraced like old friends, or rarely (or even never before) used words that encourage you to think in different ways and help you forge new connections.
Once you have several word columns on a page, pick a starting point for an exploration, which may or may not be chosen from the list. In either case, consulting your list for groupings of words that create or suggest unexpected juxtapositions, invite yourself to write into these new directions. Don’t edit as you go, unless it is to replace one list word for another. If you get stuck, simply take up with another word, explore another direction, returning to the linguistic well as many times as you need for inspiration.
Encountering words on a page unencumbered by the constrictive vessels of sentences and paragraphs aids in thinking outside the box in the construction of metaphor, developing new sensibilities around rhythm, etc., whether you are working in poetry or prose. It is like casting a fleeting net through an “atmosphere” of language; you never know what you might catch. This method can generate any category or genre of writing. It’s a rather sly, back-door way of getting around the internal critic, and a fruitful approach to those fearful moments so many of us face before the gaping page. Another way to use the words list results in some pretty amazing, if more intentional, manipulation in the form of word pairings for metaphor or simile. Try playing around with pairings just for fun, and then return to them later as a stash of ready-made fare.
Julie Esther Fisher’s poetry and stories appear in Alaska Quarterly Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Prime Number Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, On the Seawall, Sky Island Journal, Radar Poetry, The Citron Review, Litmosphere, Leon Literary Review, Waxwing, and elsewhere. Grand Prize Recipient of the Stories That Need to be Told Anthology, and Sunspot Lit’s Rigel Award, she has received multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart nominations. Raised in London, she lives today in rural Massachusetts, where she designs gardens and breaks her back building stone walls. Visit her website at julieestherfisher.com
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