Monday, May 18, 2009

thoughts on writing

I love words. I'm not a numbers gal; when it ocmes to anything past simple addition and subtraction I get a little bleary-eyed and lose focus. But word - ah, words - they take me anywhere. I was thinking about all of this as I was cutting the backyard this afternoon. Somehow, out there in the warm sunwith the buzz of the blade and a faint scent of burning oil from the John Deere, thinking of words was much more profound than anything I can muster to type here.
But a couple thoughts: Wordmasters. Ever read Ernest Hemmingway? Too late I discovered the power of the scarcity of his written word. I actually took a course in Hemmingway at George Mason as an elective in my English program. It wasn't until a couple years later, though, that I re-red those books, and then everything the man published, to drink in his simple style. Emotion and dialog and melancholy in sparsely-written pieces. Should make for quick reading, but it takes awhile to sink in.
As for me, my style is chattier, stream-of-consciousness, and (I hope) folksy. I don't get the rpactice to write now as much as I'd like - nor do I get much chance to read. I'm five minutes behind learning parenting skills, how to be a better wife, household management - necessary skills, but they sure don't take me to Europe - or big game hunting in Africa.

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