There should be a hard-and-fast rule: Never discard a book.
You never know when you're going to need it, you see. But then, there are those moving costs -- so we should all be glad for public libraries (which is where I'm writing this, BTW). The book loss I'm bemoaning today is Otto Jespersen's Growth and Structure of the English Language. (I think that was the title. I always just called the book "Otto.") I'm not talking about the legendary Danish scholar's monumental work on the history of language, but a 250-page paperback where he sums it all up in plain English (is that a pun? I don't think so.).
The reason I'm bemoaning its loss right now is that old Jespersen really went into some detail (for the common man, anyway) about how this language we're using puts words together. He really had that subject down pat.
My reason's reason is that formal verse is almost guaranteed to require the poet to invent a word at some point. You're going to need a certain rhyme or a certain phrase in a certain meter, and you're going to be stuck without the ability to make up a word. And you can't just make one up out of whole cloth, either. Why? OK, "2938470ujre." That's my new made-up word. Like it? Great! Know what it means? No? Well ... .
In other words (OK, a kind of pun), there are rules for inventing words from other known words -- and Uncle Otto (he was avuncular, but not my uncle) knew them. I think you should find this book or one like it, and then I think you should make it your vade mecum for creative language. (See, no handy English term for "a companion reference book" -- so I had to use Latin. Now see why you'll need Otto?)
You won't need to make up a word often, but when you will -- you'll have one (with Otto's help) on the first draft.
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