Thursday Night Cafe

One word, so little time
By Bobbie Smith

That's the motto at oneword.com.
It's a simple proposition, but can be a challenge to deliver. This site posts a new word every single day. You have 60 seconds to write whatever pops into your mind after seeing the word. You can then read what others have written about the same word.

This writing exercise is an amazingly powerful experience if you let yourself go. The abilities of the writers are as wide-ranging as the choice of words from one day to the next. Here are some recent examples: MOP, SWEAT, RUG, PAY, VIOLIN and CLARITY.

The responses are madly different. Some are literal definitions, others are wild flights of fantasy triggered by often mundane words. For example, one day the word was GIN. Here are five samples of the writing that surfaced during 60 seconds:

(1) to you and all things true of lime and freshly squeezed bitterness and strife, your lined walls of clarity blind my freedom to see through your density and light

(2) gin is death, but out of the death arises a new life of hilarious memories. It's virtually messianic.

(3) i used to drink gin and tonics before drinking became such a problem. now it's just the tonic. but still with a twist of lime, of course

(4) Gin fizz all over my face splashed across it like funky toothpaste creamy and zany pasty and wavy I love my gin fizzed face and spread it, grinning, all over the place!

(5) what the heck is gin

As you can see, you don't need to be a writer to go try it out. Go check it out at http://oneword.com

The same group also do a similar site that lets you add one line of poetry. You get to see the last four lines that four different people wrote for about 60 seconds and then you add yours. You can check it out at: http://www.poetc.com.