The Writer’s Challenge - by Veronica
March 28, 2007 | 11:15 PM | Filed in: Writing
Break the sound barrier. Revel like a madwoman in the
noisiness. Bask like a lizard in the heat of the
noisiness. Bask in the pleasure of creating
sentences. Bring the sentences together to form
meaning. The meaning should reflect your meaning, for
I cannot trust you if your words do not bring you
some secret thrill or make your heart skip a beat.
But the meaning should also reach out and pull at the
shadow selves of me, as of your neighbors; it should
melt their hearts with tender or shame or harden them
with fury, cold and chalky fury-fury. The meaning is
what we should cling to; the meaning makes the world
take heed. We live in a world of meaning. That may be
a shaky premise I cling to, but it is a shaky premise
that I choose to cling to. I am not existential.
Infuse the words with meaning. But above all brighten them with beauty. Give the gift of beauty to the reader; make them thrill to the words that mankind once created on a dusky dawn when the sun was still young and virginal. No longer a virgin, not even close. But treat the words like they have never been used and misused and ravaged; find ways of reinventing the thoughts that passed through the hindbrains of our ancestors. Find ways to fill their power in the starchy tingling hands and feet of the reader. Find ways to make the words seem new, even though they have been whispered and sighed and slung against the chest of a loved one for centuries upon centuries. Make the old words vampire-new.
For the writer must manipulate words. She is in control. She finds a way to make these arbitrary phonemes and morphemes and symbols that were primordially strung together to make Friend and Shelter and Make love not war suit her own purposes, suit her flavor. She is in the driver‚s seat. She makes the words flow together and dance together, flow apart and jive and jolt rhythmically. She even makes up words sometimes, short playful words like beach-rum and loverbubble and pumpkinhead that signal to the reader to do his part. He too can catch and release in this glorious process of creation and transformation.
The writer makes the words croon sweet and soft in the reader’s ear.
Or do the words make her?
Infuse the words with meaning. But above all brighten them with beauty. Give the gift of beauty to the reader; make them thrill to the words that mankind once created on a dusky dawn when the sun was still young and virginal. No longer a virgin, not even close. But treat the words like they have never been used and misused and ravaged; find ways of reinventing the thoughts that passed through the hindbrains of our ancestors. Find ways to fill their power in the starchy tingling hands and feet of the reader. Find ways to make the words seem new, even though they have been whispered and sighed and slung against the chest of a loved one for centuries upon centuries. Make the old words vampire-new.
For the writer must manipulate words. She is in control. She finds a way to make these arbitrary phonemes and morphemes and symbols that were primordially strung together to make Friend and Shelter and Make love not war suit her own purposes, suit her flavor. She is in the driver‚s seat. She makes the words flow together and dance together, flow apart and jive and jolt rhythmically. She even makes up words sometimes, short playful words like beach-rum and loverbubble and pumpkinhead that signal to the reader to do his part. He too can catch and release in this glorious process of creation and transformation.
The writer makes the words croon sweet and soft in the reader’s ear.
Or do the words make her?