The Writing Life
If you want to be a better writer, particularly a writer who authors white papers and case studies, you have to be an archeologist. Grab your hat and a whip—you’re going to need them. Boulders will give chase; you will fall into a pit of snakes. Be prepared. Come with the whip at the ready.
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To be a writer is to choose the work of limiting. You focus on one thing and not another. You know the other thing is there; it’s peeking its head around the corner or out of a hole, sticking its tongue out, cocking its head, jabbering in a foreign tongue—some nonsense about a tea party?—and you feel the temptation to follow. You want to know where the other creature goes, what its story is, why it acts the way it does.
Ernest Hemingway says to write hard about what hurts. He has a point. Write hard, pencil lead furrowing the paper, breaking.
Everybody has a list of best, or must-have, books on writing, and I’m no exception. My books may not make everyone’s list; however, they are the ones I turn to again and again and again. They have things to say and teach me no matter how many times I read them. They correct me when I get my priorities mixed up and go astray. They center me. They remind me that I’ve been made in a certain way and with a certain purpose.
“A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.” – N. Scott Momaday
To be a better writer, be childlike. See the world with wonder and joy. Laugh. Be delighted by small things. Look for beauty and extraordinary in the ordinary: the shape of clouds, a woman and her “slightly” overweight bulldog, the routine of walking to the mailbox and back.