Words and Writing and Golf

I admit, I'm carrying on a love-hate relationship and have been for many, many years. But it's not with a 'who,' it's with a 'what.'

What?

Writing, that's what. I love it and I hate it.

Let me explain.

I love words, and when put together and arranged just so, how they form phrases and sentences that blossom into ideas. I also love that there are infinite possibilities and combinations of words that can ultimately culminate into something wonderful, like the Great American Novel.

The challenge, then is this: To select the best possible word for the half finished sentence on my computer screen. I constantly ask myself: Is this the best possible word for this sentence? Is there another, better, more succinct word? Is there one more meaningful, colorful, or one that brings a clearer picture to mind? Do I want "he walked to the store" or do I want sauntered, skipped, or ran to the store? Or at the other end of the spectrum, depending on who my audience is and what I'm writing, do I want a fuzzy, vague, or general word that will help to obfuscate the meaning?

Whoa. Back up.

Obfuscate?

Yeah, that's right. "Obfuscate" means "to confuse." Hey, I used to write for the government, and I know a good, obfuscating word when I see one!

And then there are phrases. A phrase is a group of words set off with commas and semi-colons. Pretty little phrases pile on the information, one atop the other, creating a sandwich effect (as in Dagwood), ultimately building on each other until the end period.

Here's a phrase-packed sentence that I just love. It's the first sentence from Kate Dicamillo's new book, "The Magician's Elephant":

"At the end of the century before last, in the market square of the city of Baltese, there stood a boy with a hat on his head and a coin in his hand."

The reader can literally 'see' the boy standing in a busy city market. Kate's skillful and precise use of words and phrases build a picture and set the mood and the scene, right up until that handy-dandy, all-powerful sentence stopper: the period.

Sometimes I wish I could write as well as Kate, but I don't. (Here's where the hate part comes in). Writing is kind of like target practice. I keep trying to hit the bull's eye, keep trying to make my words shine on the page and light up the reader's imagination. (Maybe that's why I edited Desperado Moon 36 times!) I've written lots over the years, but it's never as good as Kate's. So I keep trying!

I've been told--and I've read--that one has to consistently practice the craft in order to get better at it. So I do. Every day. But I'm content knowing that I will never write like Kate because I am not Kate. I have my own voice, as does Michner, Rowling, Maugham, Meyer, and others. I select words based on my inner voice, my experience, my interpretations. I always strive to improve my writing technique. I practice. I read.

Words fascinate, amaze, and confound me. I love them. I love that they can both entertain and inform. I even love putting them together to form sentences, and, depending upon my writing goal, to select the exact word necessary that will best convey the intended meaning, feeling, or visualization. Sometimes, after I get all my words on the computer screen, they just don't gel and I have to scrap the whole thing. The sum of the parts just don't add up the way they should. That's the part I hate, when my selection of words, sentences, and phrases end up taking me off in a different direction. That's when I start over, select different words, assemble different phrases, and create better, more meaningful sentences.

But writing is not just words. Or phrases. Or sentences. Writing is much, much more. It is communicating ideas and telling stories, yes, but it is also having a plan. Without a plan, words are just words. With a plan, they could be anything. Look at it this way, without a plan, the Great Pyramids could just as easily have been the Great Wall . (It makes one ponder ...)

Writing is a little like playing golf. (Yes, I play golf, too. Not well, but well enough to have bested my husband a couple of times). There's a lot going on in the game: One has to keep the elbows in, keep the head down, transfer their weight properly during the swing, and follow through. All these things have to happen at the same time or the golfer will end up in the rough. It's the same with writing. There's more to it than just putting words on a page.

A good writer has to know the English language and grammar and punctuation; she has to know what she wants to communicate (to inform or to entertain), she has to know the feeling or she wants to evoke in the reader (theme); she has to know her characters inside and out; she has to know transitions and other writing techniques.

But even if a writer isn't able to remember all this stuff at the same time, she can do what golfers cannot: Edit. (Well, golfers get a Mulligan now and then, but it's not quite the same thing).

Writing is definitely challenging. It's right up there with golf as being one of the most frustrating of endeavors. And to think we do this stuff for fun!

Who knows? Maybe one day I'll get the bull's eye or the hole in one. Or the best seller. I do think I have a few things under control: Grammar? Check! Punctuation? Check (sort of). Plan? Check!

But there is one more thing. The One Basic Rule in Writing. It, sometimes, is the hardest of all: BICHOK (Butt in chair, hands on keyboard). Like Nike says--"Just do it!"

Fore!