Day 222
It was a cold and rainy night … the stars were well hidden behind the scuttling clouds and the moon was black …
The howl of the lone wolf rode on the wind through the branches of the old trees and the tapping of the rain on the window panes made me uneasy. The sounds echoed through the empty, cold rooms and I was so alone.
Words are powerful. They can convey emotions and draw pictures and throw you into automatic sensory awareness of touch and feel, taste and smell, sight and sound.
I love rain. I love evenings. It’s extra nice when it is both.
What I just wrote made the rain and night seem sinister, dark, scary and lonely. By changing some of the words I can bring about a whole different feeling …
It was a cold and rainy night … the stars were well hidden by the soft gray blanket of clouds and the moon was already asleep as the sky was black.
The howl of the lone wolf rode on the wind through the branches of the old trees and the tapping of the rain on the window panes was comforting. The sounds filled the rooms with nature’s music and I was cozy and content.
I had a conversation today about word choice. How adding or omitting a few words from a letter or story or any piece of written work can alter the entire mood of the piece.
I am a word fool. A written word fool. I write better than I speak. When I talk the pathways from my brain to my mouth get tangled up and what I want to say and what I actually say are not always the same things. Shortcuts are taken where I don’t want any. Words are replaced by others … and my speech is never as I’d like it or as it would have been had I written it and then read it. Strangely true.
But when I write … those pathways … different pathways than what I use for speech … are clear and run true and the words flow out of me like the tide going out. It is lovely.
I know I am fortunate to be able to have words flow out of me so quickly that my fingers cannot keep up. It’s a gift. And it’s a curse.
A curse because given the chance, that’s all I’d do. That’s all I want to do. Give me a keyboard and I’ll spend my day typing … let me write my thoughts, someone else’s, papers, speeches, reports, books and dialogues. I don’t care – just let me write. I even once wrote a eulogy for a friend’s dad whom I’d never met. Her family was so touched by her grasp of this man … her insight and clarity. I still chuckle over that one. (Your secret is safe with me, my friend!)
In any case … here I am on a cold and rainy night. No lone wolves howling outside, just the sound of the dogs tipping over the garbage can every chance they get. That isn’t really music to my ears … but the rain is.