I'm a guy whose wishes are words.
And whose wishes are FOR words.
By the clock, the wished-for words are straight-spined and modest, assembling in tight, orderly rows.
But when work gives way to whimsy, that's when words can stretch, flop, and peep around corners to see who's looking.
The division is due to the fact that I'm both a business writer and a fiction writer, and not only do the twain not meet, but the twains don't even arrive at the same station.
And that pun is not nearly as painful as trying to reconcile the two worlds of words.
Sometimes, there is a truce of sorts: a brochure on streaming video might have a little stream of consciousness, or a character sketch might call for a pencil tipped with the driest of logic.
But most of the time, when I have to travel between the word-worlds, it's a difficult, deliberate journey--an enterprise that requires even more than Thoreau's dreaded change of clothes.
However, I want to avoid the sense that being a painter or writer or sculptor confers any elite status or implies some exalted perspective.
I've been a staff copywriter, freelance essayist and fiction writer for years, and it's often more a matter of managing deadlines than swooning in inspiration.
Keeping the queries fresh.
Being thick-skinned about the seemingly inevitable "no" that you get from most publishers.
I've learned to just shrug and go to the next query or project.
Words for the Plucking However, there are some moments in the writing process, where words seem to be bright objects that can be plucked out of the air and strung together in serried ranks of complement and charm.
Out of nothing, a paragraph that prances--or one that cries and bleeds.
In those moments, it's less the affected pose of practiced art, but rather a kind of verbal husbandry, a farmer grateful for an unexpected crop.
This isn't precious wordsmanship, it's grace--and I'm grateful when it occurs.
What I'm getting at, is that at some times in the creative process, it's less a "me" than a "Wow!" (Conversely, it's more often, "That's shit!"--but that's realistic, not wallowing.
) But perspective is king: there can be beauty in the way a bus driver weaves her route, how a seventh-grader whistles a made-up tune, where the making of a good sandwich is an artful act.
Those moments of grace can be fleeting, but a good sandwich is forever.
Well, until lunch.
Consider this:
And whose wishes are FOR words.
By the clock, the wished-for words are straight-spined and modest, assembling in tight, orderly rows.
But when work gives way to whimsy, that's when words can stretch, flop, and peep around corners to see who's looking.
The division is due to the fact that I'm both a business writer and a fiction writer, and not only do the twain not meet, but the twains don't even arrive at the same station.
And that pun is not nearly as painful as trying to reconcile the two worlds of words.
Sometimes, there is a truce of sorts: a brochure on streaming video might have a little stream of consciousness, or a character sketch might call for a pencil tipped with the driest of logic.
But most of the time, when I have to travel between the word-worlds, it's a difficult, deliberate journey--an enterprise that requires even more than Thoreau's dreaded change of clothes.
However, I want to avoid the sense that being a painter or writer or sculptor confers any elite status or implies some exalted perspective.
I've been a staff copywriter, freelance essayist and fiction writer for years, and it's often more a matter of managing deadlines than swooning in inspiration.
Keeping the queries fresh.
Being thick-skinned about the seemingly inevitable "no" that you get from most publishers.
I've learned to just shrug and go to the next query or project.
Words for the Plucking However, there are some moments in the writing process, where words seem to be bright objects that can be plucked out of the air and strung together in serried ranks of complement and charm.
Out of nothing, a paragraph that prances--or one that cries and bleeds.
In those moments, it's less the affected pose of practiced art, but rather a kind of verbal husbandry, a farmer grateful for an unexpected crop.
This isn't precious wordsmanship, it's grace--and I'm grateful when it occurs.
What I'm getting at, is that at some times in the creative process, it's less a "me" than a "Wow!" (Conversely, it's more often, "That's shit!"--but that's realistic, not wallowing.
) But perspective is king: there can be beauty in the way a bus driver weaves her route, how a seventh-grader whistles a made-up tune, where the making of a good sandwich is an artful act.
Those moments of grace can be fleeting, but a good sandwich is forever.
Well, until lunch.
Consider this:
"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.Keep hopping, and snap a net on that nervous mind.
 How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.
 That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.
" - Vita Sackville-West
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