Recently, a friend forwarded a link to a post from Futility Closet, titled "In a Word." Four unusual words (nimiety, brachylogy, scrimption, and perficient) and definitions are listed, followed by a brief one minute video that illustrates the meaning of each working together quite superbly.
The post reminded me of a family game we used to play with our enormous and heavy dictionary, always in its tabletop stand nearby. One person would choose three words for another person to create a story-in-song using the words.
Yes, both a story and a song.
Yes, it was hugely entertaining. We still sing snippets of songs created two decades ago.
Yes, we were/are a little odd.
The game, when flipped to writing, can assist in choosing not just words but the best words. Let's say these four words were the ones chosen. I won't do it in song — you're welcome:
Georgia, perficient in transforming garbage to art pieces, waved her arms to indicate a nimiety of tools, most of which no one at the class knew how to use. "Don’t worry," she said, with a scrimption of sarcasm, "you’ll only need three of these—assuming you don’t accidentally impale yourself on something." Her brachylogy did little to save Miles.
The backyard bloomed with a nimiety of flowers, like a jungle of color too excessive for an Elton John stage costume. "Pah," Greg exclaimed with characteristic brachylogy at Val's lack of design skill. “Is this a garden or a floral disco party?" Val, one rogue rosebush away from needing a search party, barely managed a scrimption of a sad smile. "You wouldn't understand! I was trying to be perficient!"
I'll say it so you don't have to: these are horrible sample passages.
Writing a good passage with randomly chosen words is possible but not the point. Instead, the exercise forces your writing brain to work within parameters not otherwise imposed.
You can try this process with your existing writing or create something entirely separate as a warm up.
AKA, change it up. Get out of your head and into your muscles — the creative and problem-solving ones.