Let's Build A Word

Words are magic.

The process of putting letters together to build words and words together to make sentences is very powerful. It allows you to express a need, a desire, an idea or a thought. It allows you to communicate with the outside world.

The right words put togehter the right way have an even greater power. Words can create poetry and art. They can make you laugh or cry. They can make you fall in love. Or they can inspire you to take action.

As a writer I struggle with words every day. I have an idea in my mind that I want to express. I could just use the basic words to describe it.

Bunny jumped in a pile of leaves.

But that really doesn't do anything for you or for me. Kids jump in leaf piles every day in the fall. Why was it special? Why should you care? The right words will set the scene. The right words will make you understand the beauty of the moment. The right words will make you wish you were there with her, laughing, dancing and experiencing pure joy.

Often for me, the right words don't come. I can see them in my mind. They are there just out of reach. If I stretch far enough I can reach one or two. Maybe I can grab enough for a good post, maybe not. I have enough posts that I've started with a good idea only to be abandoned because the words did not come.

Every day I sit at this computer and write. I try to write better. I try to write more. Sometimes its not enough, my words have failed me.

But the true magic in words is in their discovery. The discovery that certain letters and sounds make words and those words mean something to someone. The discovery that even if the words you make don't mean anything, they are still magic.

I will sit on my living room floor and close my eyes just to experience that magic. I hear words like dog followed by bog, fog, log, hog, jog, nog, mog and frog. Cat is followed by bat, hat, sat and mat. A newly built tower will be cristened a rockstack because there is no other word to describe its magnificence.

Words are placed into action to describe play. The dino went here, he did this. Then they are streched into stories describing events that can only take place in her imagination.

It is in those times that I am remineded of the magic and beauty of words. I remember that even the simplest words have power and I am inspired to try harder.