My writing is very much like my cooking. Sometimes I make a gourmet meal and score rave reviews from the hubster, and sometimes I flop in such an epic way that even my dogs can’t be tempted to taste my culinary blunders. (Here is Rupert, my five year old Shiba Inu, expressing his disdain for one of my more recent failures.)
Each new day brings the possibility of a pleasurable writing experience and if the hubster is lucky an edible meal, but I can’t always count on either one of those things happening.
While writing can be effortless at times, experience has taught me that it can just as easily be complicated, if not downright arduous. More often than not, pesky little things called words get in the way of my writing.
Now don’t get me wrong, I adore words, but words are sometimes mischievous and problematic especially after they have been poured out onto a page. They enjoy taunting, provoking and confounding me, as well as posing knotty little problems for me to tease apart for hours at a time.
I spend a good portion of my day pushing unruly words around, and coaxing the ones which have gone astray back into line. I have even been known to give particularly troublesome words a good slap and banish them from a sentence altogether.
By my hand (and red correction pen), words often suffer a cruel, but necessary fate for refusing to acquiesce to my wishes, but I really can’t be blamed. When I am forced to chase words about a page and beat them into submission, it’s rarely worth the effort to keep them around.
There! I’ve finally admitted it! I’m not proud of my abusive behavior towards certain words, but I have found I have to be firm and let them know who is in charge.
FYI, I do not advocate, endorse or participate in violence towards any LIVING creature. I assure you, I just mistreat words and that’s only if they’ve aggravated me to the point of frustration.
I’d best shut my trap before I dig my hole any deeper, but I find myself wondering if I’m the only writer that takes such a harsh stance with words. I think not, but I could be wrong. They say confession is good for the soul and remember people, let he who hath not sinned cast the first stone.
Yes, I shall remember the wisdom of not casting stones. You need not worry from me, though. I wake up in the night with “just the right word” (uh huh?) swirling in my brain and it’s the pesky one I don’t want! I also wake up with “Mary had a little lamb” repeating over and over. It’s one thing for me to sing it with my little granddaughter during the day, but when those words deprive my brain of space for juicy dreams, I’m not happy either.
As for the cooking department? I don’t have a hubster anymore so I figure who cares! I’ll eat it anyway if I don’t want to prepare anything else. 🙂
I’ve taken to keeping a piece of paper and pen by my bed for when the right word or idea strikes at night. Ha…I eat it anyway too!
Hey! Great website. I love your main photo- beautiful.
I definitely agree with you that, despite words being the main part of our craft, they often the WORST part of our craft. Great post. I can’t wait to read more!
Thank you Katie!
An editor I work with once said, “Writing is easy. You just sit there gripping your pen (or with your hands on the keys) until drops of blood form on your forehead.” Some days, that sounds about right.
I’ve come close to that several times!
I would like to be poetic about my cooking, but yuck doesn’t rhyme with anything good. Or blegth!
Haaaaa!
Lois: I,too, find this same problem with words at times in sermons. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.
At least I don’t have to stand up in front of people! Much more pressure on your end to deliver it once it is written!