Webly Wednesday: Word clouds and tornado relief flash fiction

Do you remember Wordle? Meet its family.

What is the point of word clouds? Well, it is useful for seeing if you overuse certain words when you write. If “damn” is the biggest word when you’ve copy/pasted your novel of 90,000 words into a word cloud maker, you may want to consider being a bit more creative with the swearing. Or why you chose to call your main character “Damn” in the first place … Anyway, I digress. Word clouds are useful tools for writers. They can make pretty pictures that can be used as illustrations or that you almost want to print out and put on your wall. Also, they’re fun.

I found some more to play with:

• Tagxedo
  Would you like your word cloud the shape of an elephant? An umbrella? A key, an angel or a bat? No problem. Tagxedo has loads of layouts.
• WordItOut
  If you think that word clouds are so cool that you want them on a t-shirt or a mug, this is the way to go.
• ABCya!
  Intended for kids to have fun with. Easy and user-friendly.

On another note, Dan O’Shea is hosting a brilliant flash fiction challenge. He will donate $5 to Red Cross for every story of 1,000 words or less that he gets. The only condition is that the stories have to be about rain. I’ll upload my story here soon and if you want to donate one, and you have until May 7th.

Oh, and by the way … If anyone finds a connection between the elements of this post’s title, that is a completely unintentional pun on my part. Bad and unintentional.

Enjoy!