Odds & Ends

Dunno when it began, but I've always had a "thang" for a good story, a pithy phrase, an amusing word. I call it "the good stuff," and when somebody else wrote it, I am seized with writer's jealousy ... like D.C. Talk's - "Thinking of a way to explain-o, 'cause you know that I'm flowing like a bottle of Drain-o."

But the good stuff, the magic, surrounds us all - in cyberspace chats, in songs, in coversations overheard at Starbucks. Like Neil Diamond said, "It's the rhythm of life." So start writing it down all you wannabe novelists. I have. Here are a few nuggets from my growing word/phrase list:

• 24-hour surprise
• bottom feeder
• old charms
• meat-ax approach
• trolling for
• scruple
• suffered the offense with a ....

Got a word list of your own? Do tell! Mine has guided me through writer's block and helped make ordinary columns something better.