“I came to love understanding how people use words to craft ideas,” Tim Challies says in his last post. His seems a powerful concept, a sort of epiphany, a sentence one may want to keep on his or her desk as it was a reminder.
I like the word “craft” because it gives me a sense of great dedication. And writing is an artisanal work done with only one tool: words. These are important! It is my idea and it seems Challies’s idea too. Words stand out of the page like many little sculptures. Each one is important to the context, and each one participates in the creation of an idea, a thought; in short, each one is responsible for the “creative” work and its originality.
I have always been bewitched by words. Most of the time, I fell desperately in love with them and with the ideas lying beneath them. A dictionary has always been a perfect companion for my literary trips. With the time, I discovered that there is a word for every meaning, there is a word for every account and for every moment. There is a word to console and another to discourage. There always the right word that can be found. You just listen… it is right there, in your heart.
3 comments:
This is a great post anna. I completely agree with you. Words give me that fuzzy feeling when they are used in the perfect spot at the perfect time in that perfect sentence. The dictionary holds so much creative opportunities when it comes to writing.
"Craft" is the perfect word for using words. It impresses upon the mind something more significant than the simple construction of sentences. A good writer doesn't just string signifiers together on a clothesline, he actually constructs a deeper realm of the signified - the idea, the purpose, and the perspective. And to take a "literary trip" is to delve into the depths of such realms, whether domestic or foreign, whether self-wrought or devised in another's mind.
I love this quote: "There is a word to console and another to discourage." You once told me not to console you, that friendly words are often untrue. There are some who seek discouragement for its bitter poison and find, through its consumption, the antidote of improvement. These people, however, deserve no discouragement at all - only admiration. What is not fatal is certainly inoculating, as long as the soul retains its will and pushes onward.
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