Dealer in Words

For bibliophiles, the writer/reader relationship is like a drug deal. Just look at us. Even though our stash long ago filled every available shelf and spilled over to any horizontal surface, floors included, we still lurk among the aisles of book stores, hungry for the next fix. It doesn't even have to be a new book. A dust-covered tome from the used book store satisfies our craving just as well, if not better.

It is no longer just the possession of the drug book, it's the experience - the high - of reading. That's the only way I can explain a bibliophile's love of lending libraries and, dare I say it, ebooks. Yes, with ebooks we get an instant fix. No more late-night sweats, aimless pacing around the house looking for something new to read, or huddling in fetal position until the stores open. Ah, you say, but isn't there great merit in delayed gratification? No. For bibliophiles, that's just the fancy term for delirium tremens. We want what we wants when we wants it.

Like I said, it's a drug deal.

Word Power

Writers fell in love with words early on. Sometimes it's a challenge to find the right descriptive word or character's utterance. As  Mark Twain put it:

The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. - Letter to George Bainton, 10/15/1888 

Words are the tools of our trade. We arrange them this way and that way as we form the sentences of our work. We change them all around, delete them, bring them back, try a different word, and still a different one, and generally beat the poor things silly until we're satisfied they are precisely the right words in the right order. (We call this "polishing," but it's more like  pulling teeth, at least for me.)

When I came across this post by Doe Zantamata about the power of spoken words, I realized it's just as important to speak the right words and use more care choosing them.

I'm fond of sarcasm, and I know that sometimes my words have been hurtful, though not always intentionally so. Like the experiences of so many other people I know, the words I heard in childhood still have the power to maim (if we let them.) I resolve to speak more kindly, to choose my spoken words as carefully as the written ones.

Because it is, indeed, "a large matter."