Words

Words are just words. And words that are just words have no meaning unless spoken. Right?

Pffft. Don't make me laugh.

Words are important. They're what make up the fundamentals of human language. They're what allow us to communicate, the details of what make us the smartest animals on the planet.

They're what tell stories.

I'm a writer. Obviously. And a story, for me, is the big picture. Because stories have chapters. Chapters have paragraphs. Paragraphs have sentences, and sentences have words. (And then words have letters, but that's not important.) Words are so much more than just ink on paper. You're reading this, aren't you? And I'm saying what I'm saying through the words that I'm using, the words that you're reading.

Is this sending your mind on a trip yet?

So many people think writing is easy. Excuse me, have you ever stayed up till two in the morning writing a chapter you promised to get out the night before? Have you ever written eight different endings because seven of them weren't satisfactory? Have you ever rewritten a 60,000+ page novel in third person because you weren't sure it was good in first person, only to have to switch it back because that sucked too?

Have you ever even finished a novel?

Writing's bloody hard. It takes up a ton of your time. It's putting words down on paper, or a screen, or a napkin-- words that flow right, sound right, are right. Writers pour their heart and soul into developing characters and plots, describing settings and saying all the things that draw an emotion out of a reader-- a reader who will only read that book for a week until it's over, the experience is finished, and they move on to the next one. That's why it's so darn important, having words circulating through your brain at any given moment. Because life is full of things you want to share, and you can only do that through words.

I do believe Red Smith said it best. "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."

If only it were that easy.