Word Art!

Anyone else love words as little bits of art?

I recently noticed from my ongoing affair with Pinterest just how many times I pin pictures that are more words than images… True, the quotations and wordy-art I like often have pictures accompanying them, but a lot of them are actually quite plain. One of my most recent additions to my ‘writing corner’ in the real world, is an image printed over a page out of an old dictionary… In some ways, I think I get ‘words’ more than I get traditional art – maybe they ‘speak’ to me more than other mediums, because writing is the main art form I use? Although, I do have to say my stick men are really something to marvel at 😉

And you know what? I one of my favourite word art things are ‘tag clouds’ – especially when you generate them from something you’ve written yourself. The one above is coloured is in the colours and shape of a globe, made up from the blurbs of The Rainbow Maker’s Tale and Hope’s Daughter. I love the way tag clouds pull together the whole range of ideas in your book and bring them down to a collection of the most common words.

When I look at this picture there are things that leap out at me immediately as key themes from the two books, that are actually thrown together by accident when the cloud is generated: ‘Dangerous Friend’; ‘Lies Station’; ‘Secrets System’; ‘Parents Oddities’; ‘Society Terrifying’; ‘Hope, Believe, Love’; ‘Follow, Simple, Life’….

Once I’ve written the blurb for a book (which I seem to do reasonably early on when I’m writing – as if I’m trying to sell the story to myself!) I like getting a tag cloud put together and put them around my desk or in my notebooks for that piece – they’re great little tools for getting ideas clicking together and keeping you focused on the main ideas you want to write about.

So…how about you – do you find yourself drawn to ‘word art’ because of your love of books…? Or, if you’re an author, what do you think your ‘tag cloud’ would say about your book?