In an attempt to successfully express a thought, to paint a word picture…..
A handful of words will get a foot-hold in my mind, something someone said or something I saw. It might be a deep memory coming up for air, a thought that becomes the birth of an idea.
Once it begins to form, I’ll pour it out in bulk and then re-write – edit – re-write – edit, back space like a machine gun, highlight and drag to move.
And the punctuation! Will a comma do for the perfect hesitation, a colon; or should I go all out with……. repeating periods?
And then- does anyone even notice words in italics? Maybe I should break that mile long freight train into two or three sentences. Blatant repetition? Open the thesaurus!
I love writing the construction zone phase (if the idea survives it). Yeah, BOLD! BOLD CAPS – OUTSTANDING!! And what about those curved bracket parentheses (probably overused)?
And then there’s the circle, that elusive, sweet – satisfying return. I’m sure real writers have a term for it. If the words I’m brewing are great enough in number, and if down the page, I can circle back to a key element highlighted early on, that can create an especially delightful circle within the story. I love it when that happens!
Better phrases will knock on my mind’s door when I’m trying to sleep (thinking they’re all that important). The exact right words will push their way through to the front of the line while I’m driving. I’m not creating a “Master Piece,” here, but still, I’d better write them down or I’ll torture myself because I forgot that gem before getting home.
What’s amazing to me is that I can delicately, meticulously replace one little word with another I think conveys better, and impress my amateurish self with what a critical, but subtle difference that word made.
I will read and re-read again until I can get all the way through without making any (many) changes; sleep on it and read it again. If I can get to the end without revising, it might be finished.
So now what? I wrote it for my own therapeutic entertainment, and/or for my personal library. If I think someone else might enjoy reading it, I’ll probably make it available. If you read it, you will never know how many words I discreetly pruned or plucked. You’ll have no idea how many times I read what you’ll read just once.
The funny – “human nature” thing is…… If I’m successful at practicing the magic of written expression, you might come away with something resembling the idea I began with at the top of this page.