Wandering Words

Apologies for the tardy post.

First, I got a late start.

Then an old friend called midway in the writing of this,

and we talked longer than I thought.

~~~~~~~~~~

One of my friends is a poet. Every day he writes at least one poem that he sends to me. Most are short. A lot of them make me laugh. A few bring a tear. Some are profound.

Today's poem was about wandering words. He compares them to orphans searching for a home.

Think about that.

How many times do we use words familiar to us in our work? These words are like family.

I'm not especially talking about those that make our Search & Destroy lists - like just and was. I'm talking about other words that everyone knows.

I was going to give some examples here, but I realized that like our Search & Destroy lists, these words are probably different for each of us. My own tend to vary by project and even by chapter.

These are everyday words. Words that often are shortcuts. There's nothing wrong with them, but we use them more often than we should and rarely recognize that we do so.

So here you are, deep in the story, writing away, and you raise your gaze from the screen for a moment to give your eyes a rest. Look! On the horizon . . . see those words in the scraggly line?

Call to them.

When they approach, look them over. Have a chat with one or two. Do any look familiar? See if there are any in the bunch that might be willing to stick around for a bit, maybe do a little work for you.

Who knows?

You might even find a new member for your word family.