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Saturday, May 15, 2010

Wordcounter



67º ~ cloudy skies, slept late with little sun to wake me

Thanks to Kelli for first posting about Wordcounter. I'm about to leave to visit a friend for lunch, but thought I'd throw up these page shots before I left. This first one is from my current manuscript, In a World Made of Such Weather as This. Given the number of "dead" poems included, I pretty much knew that word would top the list. "Down" is probably #2 because it's contained in a repeated line in one poem and down is where we find the dead, sometimes. "Body" is #3 b/c the last year or so has seen a slew of body poems, and when I write about the dead, I often embody them. I love that "girl," "prairie," and "grass" all made the list. "Mother" and "father" are there as well and show that one section of the book revolves around family ties, binding and breaking.








Just because I was curious to see how much variety there was between book #2 and book #1, I also ran Blood Almanac through the counter. Here's its top 25. I am truly puzzled by "way" as the #1 word. I will be going back to read the book to see how that happened. "Body" shows up again, perhaps illuminating one obsession; "down" repeats as well...hmmmm. "Water," "night," "sky," and "horizon" seem just right to me.

All this is fun to play with, but I do need to have a serious sit down with In a World Made of Such Weather as This and see where the whole book stands. I'm about ready to move on to book #3 and want to get book #2 as finalized as possible for the next go-round on the merry-go-round of contests and reading periods.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting juxtaposition between Word Counter & Wordle. Word Counter, with its specificity, is probably more helpful. But I prefer Wordle for the pretty clouds it makes of my words!

Heavens, you're already into MS #3! I feel distinctly sloth-like!

Sandy Longhorn said...

M. Just on the possible verge of beginning #3, and compared to some people publishing today, I'm in the sloth category too!