The Luscious Language of Lincoln
Being an Adverb
The writer Anne Lamott has great advice on writing in her book Bird by Bird. The title and basis for a major tenet of the book comes from this memory which she describes in the book, "Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write [it] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"
The point here is to not get overwhelmed and try to create a mountain of anxiety, but rather, to realize that writing is about a series of a small decisions, and we need to simply accomplish the task piece by piece. Lamott also preaches about avoiding the curse of perfectionism, which is stifling to creativity and production. In other words, just write, and sort it all out later.
My point in mentioning this is that while it's important to find the "right" word, it is also important not to get hung up in trying to find the "perfect" word. Word choice, for me, is about finding the words that work, and then going back and considering some of those choices further based on context, connotation, sentence structure. Sometimes its good just to quiet the inner critic and put down the words that are forming in mind, and other times, it's good to take a moment and think about what word(s) should come next. I think the mental roadblocks take away some of our choices, and are the result of writing from a rules based approach to writing. Writing is a series of words. Start there.
My point in mentioning this is that while it's important to find the "right" word, it is also important not to get hung up in trying to find the "perfect" word. Word choice, for me, is about finding the words that work, and then going back and considering some of those choices further based on context, connotation, sentence structure. Sometimes its good just to quiet the inner critic and put down the words that are forming in mind, and other times, it's good to take a moment and think about what word(s) should come next. I think the mental roadblocks take away some of our choices, and are the result of writing from a rules based approach to writing. Writing is a series of words. Start there.
