Words, and the Power Thereof

I love words. This is not news. I have spent a good portion of my life choosing my words, both written and spoken, carefully, sometimes getting it wrong but, I'd like to think, more often than not, choosing words which uplift, paint images of beauty, and inspire. Words have power. They are magic, of a sort. The new novel I began writing this summer is based on that theme. And, though it has been set aside in deference to personal crises for several painful months (see previous post), I am beginning to feel the power of the words calling to me again. 

Ira Glass said that to become great at an art, whether writing or any other form, one must produce a huge volume of mediocre work-in other words, practice work- before mastering that art. And that's total muddled paraphrasing; my apologies Ira. But the gist is that, as I prepare to go back to school as a an English major with an emphasis in creative writing, as I get back to work on my second novel, as I tell people that I hope to work in the book publishing industry, calling my daily to-do lists and one-sentence quasi-daily journaling my "writing" will no longer suffice. I tend to write in bursts, cycling through several weeks of productivity, poetry, outlines, and actual manuscripts, before succumbing to the demands of ordinary life and losing my momentum, which, once lost, is so nimble and flighty a being as to be difficult to capture once more. As in all things, I struggle to find a balance. 

Goal: post a snippet here daily, whether a sample of some fiction from my past or present writing life, the result of a writerly exercise, or the unsolicited opinions and advice and deep thoughts I typically share. Anything more expansive than a to-do list. 

Will you hold me to it, blogland? I do thrive on positive attention and expectations. 

xo