College...

...gave me a great new way to learn more vocabulary. My comp II teacher has us turn in five vocabulary words each week. These are words we come across during the week but don't know the meaning of. We keep track of the word, the publication we came across them in (on), and the sentence it was used in.

At first I thought the sentences were busy work things so she could feel confident we weren't making stuff up, but it's really helpful. You get the context a whole lot better when you have an originating source of its meaning.

So try keeping track of words you don't know during the next month or so, see how many new words you learn and try to find ways to use them in little random works or even in a full-blown novel you may be writing.