Thursday, December 27, 2012

How Do You Develop Your Writing?

This is The Buck. However, it wasn't full when we were there.



It's amazing how ideas come in the oddest times and places. The shower is my temple for thoughts that are here one moment and gone the next. Thankfully, my most recent experience at The Buck in St. Joseph stuck with me.

After having spent the majority of the Christmas holiday with family it seemed only logical that I go and visit my beau. As usual I had fun and was thoroughly distracted until he finally went to work. It is challenging to ignore your loved ones when writing calls. I still need to gain a little will power in that area. That aside, we had a marvelous time yesterday gallivanting about St. Joseph, Michigan. I bit into the most juicy burger that had fresh crisp vegetables, perfectly melted cheese, and fries that had all the right seasonings to make a girl forget about calories and consume the whole plate. Guilt followed a bit afterwards, but I went walking in a blizzard afterwards. I'm certain I shivered through enough energy to worry about calories at another time.

While I was dining on this perfectly pulverized patty and devouring every morsel a thought jumped into my head. I should discuss one of my recently discovered writing flaws, my inability to describe why something was, cool, really nice, awesome, great, good, okay, or fine.

In my mind I was finding it hard to move past those words. To go from, "they were awesome shoes," to "they were fun emerald green triangular flats capped with gold metal at the front," was something I had been having a problem with. Pinterest made me aware of this issue.

I use Pinterest as a social media meeting of the minds with both individuals that I know well, and people that I do not. Whenever I add a picture I always include a description. However, as time passed I realized I was adding simple descriptions that didn't emphasize why these pictures I was collecting were interesting to me. All I had were a bunch of pictures that essentially said "This is SO cool!"

Repetition drives me nuts, and I am certain does so for many other readers as well. Thus I made it my prerogative to start stretching the boundaries of my descriptions. Writing can be so rich with different textures of language. It can be so much more than one word exclamations of "coolness." This writing challenge is taking what I would say in conversation and morphing it into something that others will actually enjoy reading. Like a verbal chocolate truffle that melts in your mouth, I want the words that are written to be captivating and melt seamlessly into the folds of your mind.


Development of writing comes from many different places. It comes from social media use, speech, blogging, and article construction. Self observation, which can be slow and difficult, is essential to self improvement. Consistent Pinterest descriptions and elevated blog writing is my first stepping stone. Though with January so near God Syndrome may be the bearer of some of my small successes.

Happy Writings!

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