Pontification

It’s amazing how much writing one can accomplish while one’s brain is on fire. Oh, not all of it is good writing, nor should it be when dashed off at the speed of thought, but it is considerable writing which can be made to shine and that, my dear readers, makes all the difference.


“Oh, Lord…here she goes again,” dear reader mumbles as she rolls her eyes, “pontificating about some obscure concept that really only affects her.”


You know, you’re way wrong, and it’s precisely for that reason that I and so many other people write: it doesn’t affect just me. Stories take people out of their ‘ordinary.’ Think about all the wonderful movies you’ve ever seen…they all started with a great story, a story that made you laugh or cry or got you angry. A story that lifted you out of yourself for those two hours of sitting in the dark with images flashing in front of your eyes. That’s what happens to me when I write. I see my story like a movie and it scenes flash in my brain like a tennis ball machine at a kid’s practice session: whuh-whump (action bit), whuh-whump (love scene), whuh whump (murder happens), whuh whump (funny bit occurs), whuh-whump, whuh-whump, whuh-whump. My fingers race to keep up with my brain so I’ll be in position for the next ball lobbied at me: whuh-whump, I was in the grocery store and couldn’t write it down…I missed it. A writer, a story-teller, volleys these scenes, these words back and forth, watching for strengths and weaknesses we can exploit in our characters, mentally grunting with the effort of perfectly placing the ball so it just skims, but doesn’t hit, the net (our ‘cliffhanger’ moments), building the rhythm, controlling the pacing, focusing only on that which is right in front of us, until with one last powerful backhand we slam the ball over the net and win the match. Besides Garrison Keillor, our storytellers, our oral historians, are all gone: Will Rogers, Charles Kuralt, Mark Twain, Red Skelton (remember him? Now he could tell a wonderful story). People don’t want to listen but so many of us still have stories to tell. So we write our stories, we ‘drone on’ in our blogs. We do whatever it takes to share our tale, we talk in parables or prose or iambic pentameter. We write high-brow literature and we write down and dirty smut. We write of romance and adventure on the high seas. We write of dragons and UFOs. We write of things that go bump in the night and in your face cold blooded killers. We write of faith, and hope, and the uplifting nature of happily ever after. But we all write for one reason: to share our stories with you.


So, I’ll pontificate from time to time and my intelligence will show; I’ll write in vernacular and be trendy with my use of current verbiage. You’ll see my tears in my words and my joy in my actions – you’ll share in my triumphs and setbacks.


My brain was on fire and I wrote a lot yesterday. Most of it’s good, some…not so much but that’s okay because I can really work with what I have and make it better. Writing stuff that’s just okay is better than not writing anything at all.


So…which paragraph do you like better? The pendantic prose in the first paragraph, or the vernacular re-write in the paragraph above?