Prompt 2 - Immune to overused words

This week’s prompt is to focus on, and somehow avoid, overused words, words which have lost their meaning.

Which words do you consider to be overused? (You may consider them overused in society as a whole, even in newspapers or books, or they may simply be words that you think you rely on too much.)

So often, it seems, we instinctively opt for the first, the easiest, or the most automatic or instinctive word that comes to mind…. I, for one, do this all too frequently.

Many of those words are adjectives. Some of those words could include ‘beautiful’, ‘great’, ‘old’, ‘interesting’, ‘ugly’, ‘excellent’, ‘scary’, ‘surprising’. Often they may also be verbs, for example the bland verb ‘say’ (whatever happened to ‘whisper’, ‘shout’, ‘murmur’, ‘stammer’, 'order', 'sing' etc.?).

The result is that certain words seem to have lost their meaning, lost their value …or rather, we become somehow ‘immune’ to them – we overlook them, we forget to focus on what they really mean, and therefore overlook what is really being experienced and really being expressed.

- Make a list of words that you consider ‘overused’, or words which have lost their meaning, especially words that you often use.

- Focus on one of the adjectives – ‘beautiful’ or 'scary' for example. Think of something, somewhere, someone which you would describe as ‘beautiful’ (or whatever adjective you choose) and focus on that thing/place/person - describe it, how you perceive it, how it makes you feel (etc.) …using any words you like, but not ‘beautiful’ and no other words from your list either!

Try to force yourself to stretch the limits, to focus on your senses, your feelings, and even your thesaurus or dictionary, if need be!

- Use these ideas as starting points, then write whatever you like, but experiment with the words you use and be aware of the ones you would like to avoid.

If your writing were a painting (still-life, landscape, portrait, it doesn’t matter), which subject would you choose, and how would you portray it in order to really express both yourself and your subject?

If you decide to join in, and would like to share what you've written, whether a rough draft or quite polished, post it on your blog and leave a comment here (or send us an e-mail) with your post's url. Heartful or I (or both of us) will come over to read it.

Thanks - and have fun!