Creative Tip: Vocabulary Building - One Word A Day

by NDK Creative Artist

If you’re a songwriter, a poet, a storyteller, a journalist, or indeed anybody who works with words or wants to improve their literacy, there is no better way to consistently add to your intellectual toolkit than by subscribing to A.Word.A.Day.

This fantastic free educational service is one of the longest surviving email deliveries in the world. Every day it brings in a new word, with definitions and often a little history about word origins that fleshes out your understanding of context, which can be very useful for those engaged in historical novel writing, as but one example.

I’m committed to lifelong learning (well, who can avoid it?), and I find that learning just one new word every day, can help me:

• remove a creative block
• stimulate new ideas
• enrich my knowledge of our culture and civilization
• refresh my knowledge of meaning and definition (aiding memory)
• help me write and create the precise desirable effect I want to have with a reader

When I’m editing the work of others, having a veritable cornucopia of words, definitions and meanings in my intellect’s databank makes me an organic thesaurus, banishes the overuse of the same words in repetitive fashion and thus keeps my writing and that of those I edit lively and engaging, rather than repetitive, stultifying and boring.

If you’re not already a subscriber to A.Word.A.Day, but are working creatively with words, then get on over there and begin refreshing and expanding your existing vocabulary. You won’t regret it. Language competence is a highly sought after and extremely valuable skill and even if you’re not creatively inclined, knowing what words mean improves how you work and communicate. Words and their meaning enhance our ability to experience and enjoy life.

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