A good friend recently gave me Jay Heinrichs’ book Word Hero: A Fiendishly Clever Guide to Crafting The Lines That Get Laughs, Go Viral, and Live Forever as a birthday gift. After letting it decorate the coffee table in the back corner of my living for a little over a month, I decided to pick it up this morning and it has been quite the read.

As the title suggests, the book is supposed to take me through the stages of phrase-making mastery: from word apprentice to word hero. However, in order to become a word hero I need to practice something Heinrichs calls witcraft – creating memorable and clever words -, and I’ve decided to share my attempts at witcraft here.

I doubt my initial attempts will be anything but memorable (unless they’re that bad), but the hope is to improve with time… Wish me luck!