Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Words, words, words.

Between is a good word for a writer, representing as it does even the trope "between projects," a hovering state of exposure to attractions nagging for attention or the even more hovering ambiguity of inattention.


Attraction is another choice word, thanks to its inherent recognition that a writer is drawn by forces of ideas, sexuality, mystery, surprise.

Of course surprise is a bonus word for a writer due to its tendency to push the momentum toward connections and discoveries not otherwise made.

Almost too obvious to be allowed to remain in the line, discovery is the secret reason, the unspoken reason why so many writers write. The usual pose for the writer to take is the one of steadfast proclamation, I write for an audience. This may be true after a lengthy, circuitous route, but the most compelling reason, the reason that actually brings addiction into the equation, is that the writer writes for personal discovery.

Addiction is a problematic word for any list of good words for writers, referencing the writer's public persona image of writing because it has become addictive. If anything, not writing is addictive; writing is either fun or a relief, fun because it is such a blatant opportunity to get even with a universe that seems to tend toward ignoring the writer; it is a relief because of the way it came on, almost unbidden, at a time when other alternatives seemed so unprofitable and dire.

One of the best four-letter words, dire compresses urgency, awfulness, and excessive, negative prognosis with greater dispatch than a mechanical claw at a junk yard, wrapping its components about a junked-out Mercedes. Dire need and dire consequences don't seem to clutter a page with the operatic yodel so common in overwritten material. Dire is so powerful, it could have been coined by Puccini, which would have made it even more wonderful than it already is. It is literally fraught with meaning.

Ah, fraught, you say. From our middle English friends, to fraughten or lade a ship or conveyance such as a narrative. How much will it bear?

Up to you.

1 comment:

Don said...

the writer writes for personal discovery.

Wow. No kidding. And that we don't put that passion into becoming captains of industry despite all the advantages given in that direction is a source of never-ending consternation for those close by whom God did not make writers.