TEXTBOOK

Hot Words, A Student’s Guide to Writing Truth
By Kathi Flood
Royal Fireworks Press, PO Box 399, Unionville, NY 10988
To order, please email: rfpress@frontiernet.net



Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Motivation: Gathering Fuel
2. Warmups: Creative Combustion
40 single-day assignments
80 journal entries—dispatches and assignment triggers
3. Mechanics: Striking the Match
Fresh Words, Colorful Word Choices, Describing an Object, Describing A Person, Sentence Structure, Organizing Your Thoughts, Paragraph Structure, Punctuation, Clarity, Correspondence, Common Spelling Errors, Who Is Telling The Story?, Mechanics Checklist
4. Formats: Belly of the Fire
Exposition Formats: Organizing Information
1. Information Report
2. Cause and Effect
3. Compare and Contrast
4. Critiques
5. Autobiography
6. Authoritative Voice
7. Defining Issues
Narration Formats: Creative Writing
1. Humor
2. Multiple Points of View
3. Character Descriptions
4. Scriptwriting
5. Poetry
6. Reaching Your Goals
7. Off the Page
8. The Very Short Story
5. Appendix: Afterglow
Evaluations and Rubrics
Ready to Write
6. Teachers’ Manual

"I wrote this book in an upbeat, conversational tone to cheerlead creative expression. This book includes 80 contributors, from art critics to disaster survivors to scientists, all describing their efforts and adventures in life. Hot Words includes writing prompts, interviews, writing samples, worksheets, assignments, rubrics, and other evaluative tools to help writers bust out and amaze themselves."

Excerpts from PROMISES TO YOURSELF:
1. Be receptive. Gather information from every gypsy and crossing guard you can corner; eavesdrop at the cigar shop and quiz yourself on calorie charts and almanacs and movie star maps. All this information adds up and turns you into an electric, eccentric, whizbang soul.

2. Be authentic. Fight that kneejerk response to lockstep your hungers, for there is no satisfaction in sterilized, quantified adventures. Remember that corporate choices distract you from the glory of your own hysterical laughter, triggered off by the quirkiness that makes you tingle at the sound of your own name.

3. Be patient. Run your route gracefully, expecting nothing more than fluffy pillows and a good taste in your mouth in the morning. Stay in limbo until you turn blue, and respect those foregone conclusions made on your midnight bladder-drain-runs. Press your palms together at traffic lights, knowing that the Zen bliss you have achieved far surpasses a roll in the hay on the Good Ship Lollipop.

4. Be proud. Employ state-of-the-art craftsmanship to everything you touch. Be considerate and divergent and experimental. Do not flinch when presenting your handmade cheeseballs to the Queen, and surpress that urge to flip pancakes in the rain with the radio on. Practice your techniques faithfully, be it air guitar or tongue-in-groove interviews.

5. Be focused. Practice opera scales on earthquake faults surrounded by people who live alone. Disregard examples of happiness portrayed in slick periodicals, and rub your tastebuds with licorice while walking past the bakery. Be faithful to your chosen task.

6. Be resourceful. Be a tourist at home, using cameras and scrapbooks and short-term memory banks to access your whims. List movies to see, cardgames to practice, and highrollers who know treelined backroads by heart. Cover your walls with flow charts and take naps with the weatherman.

7. Be self-encouraging. Invent a whispering soulmate who will puddlejump for distance with you. Stop your work at odd intervals and celebrate your bravery. For by this time, you will never be seen at the local bingo parlor doing the hokey-pokey in harmonizing shades of grey.