Brain Juice

February and March are low energy months for me. I'm not a winter person and even though we've had a mild one in NYC this year, I still find myself looking for recharges. When my body feels dull I try to move it (just a bit.) And when my brain feels dull I do the same. Instead of pushing myself in areas I'm already pushing - like writing and preparing for my book launch - I try to find snippets of new knowledge.

And I love learning about words – their origins and historical usage. I like exploring their sounds. Technology has provided one more venue for exploring words. Here are three sites I've been using this winter for modified mental push-ups.

Wordnik.com - I receive the "word of the day" emails.

Visuwords.com - This is an online graphical dictionary and thesaurus. It teases the brain into "seeing" words. Great for kids when they don't understand a new vocabulary word.

Rhymes.net – an online rhyming dictionary that also has a new and terrific Lyrics component. When I'm stuck in my writing, reading lyrics seems to help.