Despite the storm of big egos, swagger, and constant climate concerns swirling around us, I’ve noticed how I’ve been using hope and humble and their related forms. I was struggling with a tough health challenge for months and kept coming back to statements such as, “What a humbling experience this is.”  “I am feeling so humble—so unsure, vulnerable, scared, and really quite fallible and human.” “I hope this goes away soon.” “I hope to be better by then.”  “Hopefully this dose change will do the trick.” “Hopefully I sleep tonight.”

Hope and humble are common words—words we can handle at a young age. But with some diving and digging, I found they weren’t as straightforward or easy to use as they seemed.

Humble as an adjective is easy. Humble sounds like bumble, crumble, fumble, and stumble. It usually refers to someone who sees him or herself in a modest way and isn’t too proud or conceited. But, it can also refer to one’s origins—say if someone is from low social, political, or economic status. When referring to a thing, such as a humble abode, humble can mean that it is of modest dimensions or pretensions. Being humble means knowing we all have our limitations, shortcomings, and weaknesses. Being humble keeps us in touch with uncertainty and enables us to show compassion to ourselves, other people, and fellow creatures. In Garner’s Modern English Usage, the entry right before humble is humanness. It’s helpful to see the two close together. (Humanness made it into Garner’s because it’s often erroneously spelled without the double n.)

What’s interesting is humble as a transitive verb. A transitive verb is one that requires a direct object to complete meaning. In a sentence like, “This flareup really humbled me.”  Humbled is the verb and me is the direct object. The flareup is a force acting on me. A force or forces make someone humble; the person somehow gets lowered in status, mood, ability or some other measure. Humility can come from being abased or debased. For me, months of illness pounded home the point that I couldn’t be everything I was trying to be. That the basics of my body couldn’t be taken for granted. At the end of the day, humble humans want to sleep well, digest properly, and hope that all our organs and systems function in a way that keeps us alive and able to love.

Humbled is often misused though. Think of when people give speeches about winning an award or being appointed to some lofty position. We hear of the speaker being “humbled by” the award, “humbled by the honour,” or “humbled by the generosity.”

Bryan Garner (of Garner’s Modern English Usage) writes, “The idea originally seems to have been that the recipient of an award, title or other honour feels unworthy of it. But often this comes across as false modesty, especially because people hear humbled and perceive it as being equivalent to honoured or cheered or buoyed, especially when the sentence is offered with a radiant smile.” Use of humbled in this way seems to give the impression that it means the same as feeling honoured. Garner continues and clarifies: “A humbling experience takes someone down a notch or two, or even further. Having awards bestowed upon you, in traditional terms, is anything but a humbling experience.” (Garner 556). Notice he’s writing in second-person voice. He wants to directly correct (and humble) those who misuse it.

Garner’s not alone. Arwa Mahdawi, writing for The Guardian, was even more forceful in the opening paragraph of her article about this troubling trend. She writes, “anyone who uses the word ‘humbled’ when they really mean ‘honoured’ ought to be immediately thrown into solitary confinement and not allowed out until they have read a dictionary” (Mahdawi). That made me laugh. And breathe a sigh of relief. Despite having been thoroughly humbled in the past year, and having briefly questioned my ability to think, write, and work normally again, I am glad that at least I was using humbled correctly.

My use of hopefully?  Well, like most people, I hadn’t given much thought to how I used it, despite having loads of learning in place that should have prepared me for proper usage.

Hopefully is an adverb. It means to do something in a manner that displays hope. An example of its proper use is, “When Sara’s grandma asked about a snack, Sara looked hopefully at the cookie jar.”  Hopefully is describing Sara’s act of looking.

However, a disputed but yet common usage of hopefully is when the word is used to qualify a whole sentence. For example: “Hopefully, my grandma has made some cookies.”  In this case, hopefully is referring to the speaker’s feelings or attitude instead of an action within the main part of the sentence. No one is actually in the sentence to do the hoping action. In this use, hopefully is not acting like an adverb. It is instead a sentence-or-clause adverb or disjunct adverb.

In The Elements of Style, Strunk and White disdained such usage as “not merely wrong,” but also “silly.” Why not simply say “I hope” or “It is hoped” instead?  They write, “Although the word in its new, free-floating capacity may be pleasurable and even useful to many, it offends the ear of many others, who do not like to see words dulled or eroded, particularly when the erosion leads to ambiguity, softness, or nonsense” (Strunk 48). It’s a matter of clarity and precision.

If we look at the second cookie example I gave earlier, we realize that hopefully could actually reflect the speaker’s hope or it could also refer to how Grandma made the cookies in a hopeful manner.

Garner weighs in on this too—for three columns of text! He concludes that “Clause-modifying hopefully remains a skunked term. You might well decide to avoid it in all senses if you’re concerned with your credibility; if you use it, a few readers may tut-tut you” (Garner 553). By skunked, he means controversial. The word can still raise a stink. (The fifth edition of Garner’s Modern Usage was published in 2022.)

Another relatively recent view comes from Benjamin Dreyer in his book Dreyer’s English. Dreyer seems a bit more relaxed on the topic and points out that the word thankfully is also used in a similar way, but doesn’t seem to draw quite as much stink.

Dreyer writes, “If you can live with ‘There was a terrible accident; thankfully, no one was hurt,” you can certainly live with ‘Tomorrow’s weather forecast is favorable; hopefully, we’ll leave on time” (Dreyer 159). Fair point.

Even though I can sometimes be a bit of a stalwart, a bit of an old-fashioned grammar maven, I have to admit that, while all of this controversy is interesting, I’m unlikely to break my habit of using the clause-modifying hopefully. I do hope, however, to at least be more conscious of my usage some of the time.

And hope is important. It’s something to hold onto, like a life buoy that’s been tossed out to you. Hope sounds like the plunk of that buoy hitting the water near you. When you say it, notice the exhale. Your breath comes from deeper down. Contrast hope with wish—what we do before we blow out our birthday candles. When you say wish, you slightly lift your shallow breath. It’s a thought that will be carried on the wind like a wisp of smoke. Hope seems to have a bit more expectation with it. It gives us a chance at improving ourselves, our situation, or the world.

I spent the better part of a year feeling pretty beat up and humbled by a couple of conditions, but in my better moments I reached for that buoy of hope for improvement. I’m glad the word-exploring, curious part of me is re-emerging from the turbulent waters of illness and its accompanying anxiety and depression. I like that part of me: the inquisitive part, the part that likes learning and digging and thinking. The part of me who, as a young student at Queen’s, didn’t mind trudging through the snow, down to Stauffer Library, and checking word history and usage in the multi-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary. I still like unearthing treasures that can change my thinking, affect my interpretations, analyses, and word choices. I like being a sort deep-sea diver of diction, an enthusiastic archaeologist, or a gardener grinning over some dirty potatoes that are ready for cleaning and sharing.

When hope and humble work together, we can accept our shortcomings, learn, and then problem solve and grow.

References
Dreyer, Benjamin. Dreyer’s English. New York: Random House, 2019.
Garner, Bryan A. Garner’s Modern English Usage, The Authority on Grammar, Usage, and Style. 5th. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
Mahdawi, Arwa. “Celebrities, let me fix this for you – you’re not ‘humbled’ to win something, you are ‘honoured’.” The Guardian 14 September 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/14/celebrities-let-me-fix-this-for-you-youre-not-humbled-to-win-something-you-are-honoured.
Strunk, William, and White, E.B. The Elements of Style. Montreal: Longman, 2000.

I don’t know about you, but I make pictures in my mind as I read.  When I read clear writing, I can easily gather concrete, specific details that I use to make a better picture.  Through the picture-making process, I develop a better understanding of whatever I am reading.  Voice influences what, how, and when certain details make it into the picture I am constructing.

Just one of many factors that influence clarity of expression, voice refers to whether the subject of the sentence is performing an action or receiving the action.  To identify voice, which can change from sentence to sentence, we have to pick apart sentence structure and understand the relationships between its actions, performers, and objects.

A simple active sentence provides a clear subject that acts.

• Protesters climbed over the barricades.

A simple passive sentence shows the subject as receiving action.

• City Centre was overcome by protesters this week.

Notice the change in subjects and emphasis.  In the first sentence, protesters are the subject and we see them climbing immediately.  In the second sentence, the subject is City Centre.  We picture that first, but then we have to guess what that would look like if it was overcome, but we only know by whom (the protesters) at the end of the sentence.  This processing happens quickly, but you can see how the passive structure slows us down compared to the active structure.

In some passive sentences, we may never find an answer to the question of by whom.  I’m sure you are familiar with these evasive examples of political rhetoric:

• Mistakes have been made.
• An investigation has been launched.
• The matter will be addressed.

Clearly, the intent is to not be clear.  In statements like these, readers or listeners do not get real details to add to our picture.  This construction deliberately omits the performer to hide issues of blame or responsibility.

In longer sentences, diction and word placement can obscure the actions and performers, making it difficult for the reader to see the sentence as either active or passive, and create the necessary mental pictures.  Sometimes the words that seem to convey action are acting as other parts of speech rather than as verbs.  Fun stuff, eh?

Most style guides say that the active voice encourages direct explanations that fall in a natural sequence of words.  Active sentences tend to be shorter, clearer, and more specific.  Passive constructions tend to be wordy, awkward, and vague.  The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association says that while both types of voice are permissible, “many writers overuse the passive voice.” It encourages writers to use active voice “as much as possible to create clear, direct sentences” (American Psychological Association 118).  The Chicago Manual of Style agrees, stating, “As a matter of style, passive voice …  is typically, though not always, inferior to active voice” (University of Chicago Press 264).  They acknowledge that, sometimes, passive might be more appropriate.

Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief of Random House, has some helpful and amusing advice about identifying active or passive voice.  “If you can append ‘by zombies’ to the end of a sentence,” he says, “you’ve indeed written a sentence in the passive voice” (Dreyer 14).  You can also look for these words: was, were, by, and will be.  They do not guarantee the sentence is passive, but the sentences they are in are worth checking closely.

Hemingway Editor and Grammarly have passive voice checkers which are helpful but not always correct or reliable.  They can check for passive voice, but not discern when it may be more appropriate to change voice.  A human writer or editor who understands passive voice, as well as the written content and context, is the best judge of when to use active or passive voice.

So how do we know which voice to use in a given sentence? Here are some questions to consider if you are revising a sentence for voice:

• Where does the reader’s interest lie at this time? Should the performer be emphasized with an active sentence? Is the action more important than the performer? Or is the object or recipient of the action more important than the performer and action?
• Do I have a reason to tame, hide, or delay certain details? Is the performer of the action unknown or unimportant?
• If I use a concrete noun and definite action (in the form of a verb), will I create a more efficient and detailed picture in the reader’s mind?
• Am I trying to avoid using a personal pronoun?
• Would changing the voice of the sentence ease a transition between sentences or paragraphs?
• Have I used too many direct, active sentences? Is there a choppy or repetitive cadence to the paragraph?
• Have I written a sentence that is too long and awkward to comfortably read aloud?
• What voice and arrangement of words will ease the experience for the reader?

Remember, most of the time, the active voice is best.  However, the writer who is willing to give readers the most comfortable and elucidating experience will consider these questions while revising sentence by sentence.  By shifting and changing certain words, we adjust emphasis and affect how our readers build pictures and meaning from our writing.

References
American Psychological Association.  Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.  7th.  Washington: American Psychological Association, 2020.
Dreyer, Benjamin.  Dreyer’s English.  New York: Random House, 2019.
University of Chicago Press.  Chicago Manual of Style.  17th.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Jessica Macleod doesn’t write for us often, but I enjoy it when she does.  Most readers of the Voice Magazine are students, and with writing one of the primary activities of student life, providing advice on how to to do it better always felt to me like it should be a mainstay of The Voice Magazine.  So I’m quite happy to be able to include this reader recommended article from way back in our February 9th edition as part of the Best of edition.

A creative practice is crucial for writers, thinkers, artists, product designers, and creative entrepreneurs.  What Godin means by practice is the commitment to creative work—that is, showing up day after day, even as our ideas, formats, methods, tastes, or styles change.  For writers, the practice can include writing every day for a given amount of time or producing a certain word count.  Some writers (including Godin) advocate blogging daily.  For artists, the practice is showing up to your studio or workspace and sketching, planning, testing, and experimenting.  The practice grounds us, encourages us to learn, and builds our confidence and trust.

Our practice is also the only thing that we can control.  We can’t control results, outcomes, fickle fans, or social trends.  We can only control coming to the table, letting go of judgement and perfectionism, and deciding to learn, problem-solve, make, and think.  Godin points out, “If you do something creative each day, you’re now a creative person.  Not a blocked person, not a striving person, not an untalented person.  A creative person.  Because creative people create” (Godin, 34).  It’s only by having lots of bad ideas that we get to the good ones; it’s only by building streaks of showing up and working daily that we get inspired and enter a state of flow.  Not the other way around.  Doing is within our control, and doing is what builds trust in ourselves.

When we trust our practice and our work, it gets easier to “ship” our work.  Godin uses the term “shipping” to cover just about anything you do to get your work out into the world.  Sending this article to The Voice is shipping my work.  No boxes, shipping labels, or brown UPS van, as the term might suggest.  For writers, “shipping the work” can be sending out queries or works for consideration, blogging regularly, reading your work out loud to others, or even engaging in regular written correspondence with a fellow writer or two.  Visual artists participate in shows, investigate gallery options, share their work online, or sell at local shops, fairs, and events.  The point Godin makes is that creatives should share their visions, original perspectives, and creations.  Creative work provides new experiences for people.

Many creatives are afraid of sharing and shipping, though.  They may fear failure, rejection, and criticism.  Some fear that audiences will confuse the art with the person and see them differently.  But by not shipping the work, by not entering that show, or not sending out that article, you are “isolating yourself from the circle of people who can cheer you on and challenge you to do more” (47).  It’s only by first building and trusting our practice and ourselves, however, that we can make that leap to trusting an audience.  And we can only learn to trust the audience if we ship.

I like the uncomfortable truths Godin presents in this book.  I appreciate perspectives that shove me out of my excuses and self-pity.  For example, he dedicates a whole section to “There’s no such thing as writer’s block” (153).  We don’t get blocked: we just decide to wait for a better idea or some kind of unknown outside force to help us.  “The magic is that there is no magic,” Godin asserts.  “Start where you are.  Don’t stop” (257).  Some of these truths can separate the “hacks” from the “professionals.”  If we give in to a mood and dodge our practice, we’re a hack.  Showing up and doing the work makes us professional.  Hacks wait for inspiration; professionals show up and work their way into inspiration.  The practice, the commitment, is our “choice to do something for long-term reasons, not because we’re having a tantrum” (149).  Have you ever found yourself envious of another person’s success?  Chances are, that person is succeeding because “they shipped their work, and you hesitated” (203).  Let that one settle in.  Godin’s little truth bombs can destroy some of your favourite excuses.

One area of the book that was not as effective, however, was when Godin talked about finding an audience.   Finding a supportive and paying audience is a really big deal.  After all, creative people need to eat and pay bills just like everyone else and would like to do so without totally selling out.  In raising this issue, Godin recognizes that creatives need to solve this problem, but because his target audience is so wide, and he tries to cover many possible creative fields, his advice isn’t all that specific or helpful.  He tells us that we can’t aim for everyone and that having some good clients is more desirable than having many mediocre ones.  He tells us to start small: “First find ten.  Ten people who care enough about your work to enroll in the journey and then bring others along” (123).  He is not wrong.  It’s just old advice—stale and vague—that many will need to break down into concrete doable steps on their own.

The Practice, Shipping Creative Work is only 260 pages, and it is divided into 219 chapters spread across eight sections.  Some chapters are shorter than ten lines, while others are a page or two.  The chapters are short, clear, and easy to understand.  While you could probably fly through this book quickly, I recommend spreading your reading out.  Take on a couple of chapters at a time and really think about how they apply to your creative work and what you are making and shipping.   While some of Godin’s ideas are repeated throughout the book, I didn’t mind.  Reminders can take a while to work.  Tasks sometimes show up in our to-do lists and on post-it notes for weeks.  I appreciate a bit of repeated advice and guidance.  After all, writing this review had been on my to-do list for several weeks.

References
Godin, Seth.  2020.  The Practice: Shipping Creative Work.  Penguin Publishing Group.

April is National Poetry Month.  To help celebrate, here are five ways to experience how poetry affects what we feel, see, and think.

Explore

See what’s on your bookshelves at home.  Pull out the liner notes of CDs or cassettes.  Flip through literature anthologies and poetry books at the library.  Browse used book sales or shops and try to find poems that have been marked up by other people.  Try to find poems that you read years ago.  How does it feel to read them again? Has your understanding changed?

Look online.  AU’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences offers an online collection of information about Canadian writers whose works are studied in AU’s language and literature courses.  Learn about poets such as E.  Pauline Johnson, Earle Birney, Robert Kroetsch, and more.

Subscribe to Poem-a-Day or Poem-of-the-Day to have poems delivered to your inbox.  The benefit of this type of service is that you’re experiencing works you might not otherwise think of choosing on your own.

As you read, ask questions.  What do you like about a particular poem?  What do you dislike?  What elements poked you or nudged you somewhere you didn’t think you’d go? What isn’t clear?  Find some poems that resonate, that create a shift in feeling, perspective, or thought.  Explore with an open and curious mind.

Play

Find some Magnetic Poetry.  These kits contain little rectangular, magnetic pieces with words printed on them.  You can use them on your fridge, filing cabinet, or even a plain old flat surface that lacks the magic of magnetism.  They’re loads of fun—especially if you have co-workers, roommates, or family members who continually sabotage your efforts.

Or, take out a black marker, some whiteout or correction tape, a pair of scissors, and some newspapers, magazines, or old books and play around with making found poetry.

Listen

Listen to the rhythms, sounds, pacing, and unique vocal qualities of the author or reader to add more meaning and experience to poems you had only read on paper before.

If it’s possible, choose one poem and compare audio versions of it.  For instance, compare Tennyson’s reading of his own “Charge of the Light Brigade” to more contemporary readings.  Compare a traditional reading of Marlowe’s “Live with Me and Be My Love” to Annie Lennox’s version.

Get some friends together and challenge yourselves to read the same poem but in different ways (with or without an open bottle of wine on the coffee table).

I like the podcast Read Me a Poem.  In each episode, the host, Amanda Holmes, introduces and then reads one poem.  No special effects or excess commentary.  The reading is simple and lovely.  I almost always listen to an episode a few times to let the poem stir and settle within me.

Watch

Use the search function of your streaming service of choice and see what comes up for poetry.  Kanopy, a streaming service provided by many public libraries, has documentaries on Diane di Prima, Derek Walcott, Al Purdy, Billy Collins, and more.

Movies about poetry I’d like to watch (or rewatch) in the coming weeks include Dead Poets Society (1989), Benediction (2021), A Quiet Passion (2016), and Paterson (2016).  An often-forgotten source for movies is a public library.  Ask and you might receive.

Practice and Share

Every April Writer’s Digest offers an online Poem-A-Day challenge (PAD Challenge).  Visit the site each day in April to get a prompt for writing your own poem.  Writers from around the world participate.  You can share your poem on the website or simply write your poems to keep or share in your own way.

Share your favourite poems or lines from poems with friends, family, and your online network.  Read some Dennis Lee, Edward Lear, and Shel Silverstein with your kids.  Use some sidewalk chalk to share a poem on your driveway or parking space.

It’s so easy to add a bit of poetry to your April days.  I hope you do.

The following story attempts to demonstrate how some commonly confused or misused words should be used.  To be ready for them when they come up later, here are the eleven confusables:  aggravate, anxious, bemuses, continually, continuously, discomfit, discomfiture, discomfort, nauseated, nauseous, noisome.  Explanations about the proper usage of each word are provided after the story.

___________

Mitch had been nauseated for years—decades even—but he hadn’t realized it.  He was clear on the vomiting, dizziness, diarrhea, and hours in the bathroom, but all that time he thought he was nauseous.  He had not been causing feelings of sickness or disgust in others; he had just felt sick himself.  And now that he knew the difference between the two words, he was also a bit embarrassed.

It’s not that Mitch was continuously sick for years.  He could have a few days here and there of normal appetite, a healthy attitude, and the strength and courage required to get some fresh air.  However, he continually suffered from panic attacks.  He could count on their frequent visits like one could count on rain or wind.  He couldn’t quite count on people’s understanding, however.

Mitch is surrounded by people who used the word anxious to mean eager or looking forward to something with excitement.  At one time, he would have admitted that such usage frustrated him.  But now he knows it hasn’t held him back or beaten him down.  That usage just annoys and slightly bemuses him.

“Nothing about being anxious feels good!” he wrote in his journal.  He also underlined those words to make up for not speaking that clarification aloud.  Mitch had even resented the generally acceptable use of anxiety for feelings of nervousness and uneasiness.  Why did anxiety grace others with playful butterflies and nervous energy but tackle him with suffocating fear, loose bowels, and cold sweat?

At least the language foibles of others did not aggravate his condition.  No, he only had himself to blame for that—or rather, some of his habitual and problematic thought patterns, poor diet, and infrequent exercise.

Mitch’s almost silent but noisome anxiety attacks created such discomfort that he began regular counselling and hung a tattered old boxing bag from a beam in the basement.  Cognitive behavioural therapy helps him reframe and dispute the thinking patterns that have fueled his anxiety.  By boxing the heck out of that bag, by pounding away at it until drops of his sweat hit the floor, Mitch gains strength, an outlet for his emotions, and adrenaline-infused confidence.   At the end of a session, he gives the bag an extra shove in triumph, imagining anxiety (the foe who had discomfited him for years) toppling in discomfiture, weeping in a bruised and bloody heap on the basement floor.

Just like rain comes and winds shift, that enemy does rise now and again to taunt Mitch.  But more days than not, Mitch ascends his basement stairs sweaty and tired, with his heart still pounding with fury and exhilaration.  “Today, you lose,” he calls back to that heap on the basement floor.  “I’m not nauseated today.”

_________

Aggravate    Aggravate means to make a situation or condition worse.  This is not the same as annoy or irritate.

If you know that you shouldn’t use aggravate, but are trying to decide between irritate or annoy, consider the degree of upset.  Harry Shaw, in Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions, explains: “Irritate .  .  .  refers to a milder disturbance or lesser upset” than annoy (Shaw, 64).

Anxious        Unfortunately, this word is often used to describe the state of looking forward to something.  Instead, it should be used when there is an associated discomfort.  Bryan A.  Garner writes, “when no sense of uneasiness is attached to the situation, anxious isn’t the best word.  In those instances, it displaces a word that might traditionally have been considered its opposite—namely, eager” (Garner, 71).

Bemused     Being bemused is not at all like being amused.  Bemused has more to do with feeling perplexed or confused.

Continually / Continuously      Continually should be used to describe something happening repeatedly, at close intervals, with stops between occurrences.  When something persists without stopping, continuously is the better adverb to use.

Discomfit    Usually a verb, discomfit is to frustrate, thwart, or even confuse or disconcert.

Discomfiture / Discomfort        Both are nouns, but discomfiture is way stronger than discomfort.  Discomfiture means an overthrow or defeat.  Harry Shaw offers this distinction: “When you suffer discomfiture, you also experience discomfort, but discomfort alone rarely results in discomfiture” (Shaw, 130).

Nauseated / Nauseous     Nauseous refers to what causes feelings of sickness, but nauseated describes our feelings of sickness.  Shaw provides a great example: “Because the fumes were nauseous, the people became nauseated” (Shaw, 247).

Noisome      Noisome is unrelated to noise.  Think of it more as a cousin to noxious.  It refers to something foul or disgusting.

References
Garner, Bryan A.  2022.  Garner’s Modern English Usage, The Authority on Grammar, Usage, and Style.  5th.  New York: Oxford University Press.
Shaw, Harry.  1987.  Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions.  Toronto: McGraw-Hill.

The three types of books I recommend here are basics that I use every day.  I can’t imagine working with words (or being an avid reader) without dictionaries, thesauri, and usage dictionaries.

Diction enhances or diminishes our audience’s reading experience.  Yes, words convey meaning, but with varying degrees of success.  Let’s take the ever-popular but vague words good, interesting, or bad.  They don’t tell us much.  Compare “That show was a good event” to “That show was an exhilarating event.” Both communicate a positive experience, but the specificity of the second example teaches us more.

The reader depends on our word choice and arrangement to build better images and comprehension.  This doesn’t mean more words are better.  Finding the words that work and arranging them as clearly as possible can reduce wordy clutter that may obscure meaning and deter readers.  As writers, we must be clear about what we are attempting to share, and then find the best words to help express that.  I find the process of choosing words not only educational but also enjoyable and inspiring.

A Comprehensive Dictionary

For now, the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (second edition, 2004) is “the standard working dictionary for Canadian editors” (Editors’ Association of Canada, 46).  Yes, it’s a heavy, hard-covered book with a loose dust jacket, but it is comprehensive with 300,000 words, phrases, and definitions.  Plus, it is Canadian-made, not merely an American or British dictionary with a few added Canadian quirks.  This tome spends most of its working days lying open on my desk.  I also have access to Oxford’s online dictionary and references and refuse to let go of my red Gage Canadian Dictionary in paperback.

(Thankfully, Editors Canada, Nelson Education, and a team of volunteers and students are working together to produce a new Canadian English Dictionary.  The project will take a few more years before we have full online or book access, but you can check out their progress at canadianenglishdictionary.ca.)

I turn to my dictionary for more than spelling or meaning.  It can give me answers on

• capitalization (chinook for the wind, Chinook for the people)
• variant spellings (enrol, enroll)
• inflection (how a word changes for tense, mood, number, etc.)
• word breaks (looking at you, analogy!)
• etymology (a word’s origin)
• part of speech (noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, etc.)
• pronunciation
• and some usage details (if the word is formal, informal, or archaic; in what regions or subject areas the word is used)

In the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, when several numbered definitions are listed, the first meaning is considered the most current (at the time of publication) and important.

All of these details guide me toward proper use of the word.  As a result of checking, maybe I’m confident with my first choice, or maybe I change the word to something more appropriate.  Or maybe I turn to another book for more clues and options.  But in taking in all those details, I learn to connect this word to other words, ideas, and images.  I’m building my vocabulary for future tasks and appreciating the complexities of our language along the way.

A Thesaurus

With a thesaurus (or dictionary of synonyms and antonyms), we can explore and acquire word options that are related.  Warning: related does not mean interchangeable.  Do not use a thesaurus without also using a dictionary to make sure the word you’ve chosen is actually appropriate.  Good writers consider context, audience, denotation (literal meaning), connotation (implied meaning), and even sound and syllabication in their diction decisions.

Let’s take hat as an example.  While hat is a concrete noun, it’s vague; we don’t get a satisfying picture from it.  My Compact Oxford Thesaurus offered me cap, beret, bonnet, and titfer (Oxford, 381).  Those results were a bit underwhelming.  But it also suggested some related word links such as hatter and milliner.  Thesaurus.com offered various options too, and quickly, but it did so with judgement—categorizing the results in groups of “strongest,” “strong,” and “weak.”  I prefer deciding on my own, thanks.

I checked my almost ancient Roget’s Pocket Thesaurus (the 1966 printing!) and found jewels such as panama, fez, derby, crown, and more (Mawson and Whiting, 64).  All of these hat options are not interchangeable.  But they challenge us to bring precision to our thinking and words.  Plus, they inspire and spark curiosity.

In my paperback Roget’s, the hat options are presented within a section on clothing, which precedes a section on divestment.  For creatives, browsing yields inspiration.  Maybe we’re moved to write a story about a wig-wearing hatter who wants to exact revenge on a milliner but finds himself in love with the milliner’s beautiful daughter whose bonnet is always undone….  Or maybe we just want to sharpen an image or put our own twist on a cliché: Hold on to your tam-o’-shanter, danger is afoot!  New and unusual words can enliven our writing practice and our text.

Finally, a thesaurus also helps us understand how big a topic is and how to narrow to more focused avenues of inquiry.  Related words and ideas are different access points and options when brainstorming, entering search terms, and using back-of-book indexes.

A Usage Dictionary or Guide

Rather than attempting to include as many words as possible, usage dictionaries or guides tend to focus on words or phrases that we’re likely to confuse or misuse.  I see them as one more way of growing and strengthening our vocabulary muscles.

Let’s say we’re trying to pick between the words junction and juncture.  According to Garner’s Modern English Usage, the phrase at this juncture refers to “a crisis or a critically important time” (Garner, 634).  This means cliched phrases such as “critical juncture” and “pivotal juncture” are redundant because juncture already implies importance.

So, when do we use junction? I found some more guidance in Harry Shaw’s Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions.  While both junction and juncture are associated with joining, junction has more to do with location, as in “the junction of tributary and river” (Shaw, 214).

Two other commonly confused words are founder and flounder.  Both relate to failure, but they are not interchangeable.  According to Garner, flounder is to “struggle and plunge as if in mud” (Garner, 464).  Founder, on the other hand, is a word used when an animal goes lame, a building falls or gives way, a rider falls off a horse, or a ship sinks.  There is more finality to founder; we’re looking more at the result.  With flounder, in contrast, we’re focusing on the struggle.

A usage dictionary anticipates some of our own floundering with words and clarifies rather than merely defines.

(The Chicago Manual of Style and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style also contain sections on usage.  If you already have those books on your shelf, it makes sense to start with them.)

Dictionaries, thesauri (or thesauruses—both are acceptable), and usage dictionaries, are informative, inspiring, and helpful reference books to have.  Though browsing them may not be as direct or quick as an online search.  Asking generative AI to make word decisions and write the piece would also be quick.  However, if we take the time to look and think ourselves, we can find delight in diction.  If we trust ourselves to the adventure, to be curious and to make the many choices involved in a piece of writing, we find learning, inspiration, and skill, while also earning the satisfaction and confidence that comes from authentic learning and sharing.

References
Editors’ Association of Canada.  2015.  Editing Canadian English, A Guide for Editors, Writers, and Everyone Who Works with Words.  3rd.  Edited by Karen Virag.  Toronto: Editors’ Association of Canada.
Garner, Bryan A.  2022.  Garner’s Modern English Usage, The Authority on Grammar, Usage, and Style.  5th.  New York: Oxford University Press.
Mawson, C.O.  Sylvester, and Katharine Aldrich Whiting, .  1966.  Roget’s Pocket Thesaurus.  Richmond Hill: Pocket Books of Canada.
Oxford.  2008.  Oxford Compact Thesaurus.  3rd, revised.  Edited by Maurice Waite, Lucy Hollingworth and Duncan Marshall.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shaw, Harry.  1987.  Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions.  Toronto: McGraw-Hill.

Do not despair.  The prognosis is more hopeful than the acronym suggests.  You can likely live a long and mostly satisfying life.  You can stand proudly by your bookcases, breathe deeply, and know that you are neither powerless nor alone.

Key symptoms of Dictionary Engagement and Accumulation Disorder (DEAD) include having multiple (possibly even dozens) of physical dictionaries and encyclopedic reference books in one’s home, using them regularly, and being open to acquiring, or at least perusing, even more dictionaries in book form.

I argue that these symptoms do not necessarily indicate an illogical need to clutch at the past in fear.  They are reasonable lifestyle choices that hitherto were not considered disordered thinking at all.  DEAD was not in earlier diagnostic statistical manuals.  Unfortunately, search engines, online dictionaries, and the LLMs of AI have reduced to anomalous behaviour the healthy curiosity of looking something up in a book.

If you, or someone you care about, has been diagnosed with DEAD, then read on.  If you’ve been encouraged to cull or (gasp) toss your reference book collection, you can use these arguments to toss at your naysayers instead.  You can survive—with reference dictionaries and pride still intact.

Ready When You Are

Physical copies of dictionaries are ready when you are.  You can get results without depending on an internet connection or a company’s website.  Whether or not you have paid your bills, a dictionary on your shelf is there for you when you are checking spelling, meaning, or hyphenation.  Heck, even if the power is out, your book-form dictionary is your companion while you are shivering by a window during the day, or reading by candlelight at night.

And chances are, your favourite dictionary is right where you left it.  No one has changed its address or constructed a paywall.

Respect and Boundaries

My Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is not tracking my behaviour.  My Chambers Biographical Dictionary does not hassle me with popups or nag at me to buy, subscribe, enrol, or click.  These dictionaries do not ask for a password either.  They respect me for purchasing once and then providing them with a good home and a job to do.

Physical dictionaries provide us with reliable information in a way that promotes focus.  Rather than sifting through varied and somewhat dubious online search results with fingers crossed, or wondering if a chatbot is hallucinating or providing plagiarized responses, we can grab a desk reference book for just enough verified information to get us started and keep us on task, but not too much to be discouraging or distracting.  When I pick up my thesaurus, I don’t find myself thinking, “I wonder if that’s accurate.” I also don’t think, “Maybe I should also check Facebook,” or find myself with three items in my online shopping cart.  The rabbit holes of internet research are many and deep.

Physical dictionaries provide some solid ground.  The meanings and spellings of folderol or foliaceous remain the same in my Canadian Oxford as the last time I checked.  They withstood time and scrutiny before their inclusion.  However, with too many disparate meanings available to us online, some of which may be quite short-lived, we are less certain of the ground on which we are building and sharing meaning.  Sure, language evolves, and not all change is bad, but each new term and original usage should have to put in time under serious study first.  Our physical dictionaries respect our time and footing, as well as the language as a whole.

Active Engagement

Striving for precise language helps us think and communicate clearly.  During that striving process, when we are searching a dictionary and deciding what word to use and write, we are active in ways that we take for granted but are, nonetheless, working in our favour to build health, learning, and experience.

Consider physical activity.  If you go and grab your big, hardcover dictionary from the shelf, you are engaging muscles, encouraging blood flow, building strength, and giving your eyes, wrists, and other body parts a break.  Think of all the small but beneficial movements of sliding the chair out, twisting, turning, rising, walking, grabbing, holding, and then scanning and reading.  Computer use and screen time can create painful muscle and joint conditions, decreased flexibility and strength, mental agitation, and eyestrain.  Our bodies are meant to move—not atrophy in the un-ergonomic torture of too much tech.  Plus, movement improves blood flow around the body and brain leading to better cognitive ability.

Even as we have the book in hand, we are still active as we determine where to open the book and how long to engage in flipping pages.  We are also getting clues and learning about order and spelling.  To find the word we need, we must scan, encounter, think about, and rule out words we do not need.  All this time, from desk to shelf, from flipping to result, we have the word and idea working in our minds; plus, we are subconsciously absorbing other words and language patterns as we go.  That extra time and activity are beneficial.  Compare this to looking up a word online: you type in a word and then the spelling and definition are dispensed faster than stale chips from a vending machine.  Limited movement, limited thought.

Using a book-form dictionary also encourages us to consider spatial context as well as sensory details to create meaning, memory, and understanding.  Consider all of this mental activity: mapping out and recalling in your mind where your shelf is, the location of the book on the shelf, the location of the word within the book, where the word resides on the page, if the page is recto or verso, and determining which of the supplied versions of the word or its definitions apply to your particular situation.  We feel the book’s weight and paper’s texture, hear the flipping sound of turning a page, and see the words and images as we scan and digest.

Experience and Inspiration

Dictionaries thus provide a rich and memorable experience.  They stand language still for us, like capturing a moment in a photograph, but each time we come to them, we are a bit changed and can notice different words or images.  I spoke to a few writers while preparing this article, and all fondly remembered the various dictionaries of their lives.  They recalled colour, type of paper used, and size of the book.  They also recalled what stage of life they were in when they acquired or used a particular dictionary.  I don’t think the speedy results of an online dictionary will be remembered as fondly.

More than one writer commented on how enjoyable it is to encounter new words on the way to the word you are seeking.  What a vast collection of jewels to mine for writing and imagining! If you learn a new word, perhaps you will want to test it out in a few different sentences, kind of like walking around in a pair of shoes before buying.  Or, for the brave and creative, open a dictionary to a random page and choose five new words to incorporate into a poem or story.

Even simply browsing can be rewarding and inspiring.  A collection of dictionaries (old and new) can spark curiosity, invite learning, and take us to times and places that a quick online search will not.  Think also of what you would rather discover as you wander some post-apocalyptic, dystopian wasteland: someone’s old, broken computer or a tattered box of dictionaries and desk reference books?

So, back to that dreadful DEAD diagnosis.  Forget it.  If you have the space for them, those nicely curated collections of words and learning are fine just where they are—on nightstands, windowsills, and bookshelves.  Use them often and display them with pride.

I don’t know about you, but I make pictures in my mind as I read.  When I read clear writing, I can easily gather concrete, specific details that I use to make a better picture.  Through the picture-making process, I develop a better understanding of whatever I am reading.  Voice influences what, how, and when certain details make it into the picture I am constructing.

Just one of many factors that influence clarity of expression, voice refers to whether the subject of the sentence is performing an action or receiving the action.  To identify voice, which can change from sentence to sentence, we have to pick apart sentence structure and understand the relationships between its actions, performers, and objects.

A simple active sentence provides a clear subject that acts.

• Protesters climbed over the barricades.

A simple passive sentence shows the subject as receiving action.

• City Centre was overcome by protesters this week.

Notice the change in subjects and emphasis.  In the first sentence, protesters are the subject and we see them climbing immediately.  In the second sentence, the subject is City Centre.  We picture that first, but then we have to guess what that would look like if it was overcome, but we only know by whom (the protesters) at the end of the sentence.  This processing happens quickly, but you can see how the passive structure slows us down compared to the active structure.

In some passive sentences, we may never find an answer to the question of by whom.  I’m sure you are familiar with these evasive examples of political rhetoric:

• Mistakes have been made.
• An investigation has been launched.
• The matter will be addressed.

Clearly, the intent is to not be clear.  In statements like these, readers or listeners do not get real details to add to our picture.  This construction deliberately omits the performer to hide issues of blame or responsibility.

In longer sentences, diction and word placement can obscure the actions and performers, making it difficult for the reader to see the sentence as either active or passive, and create the necessary mental pictures.  Sometimes the words that seem to convey action are acting as other parts of speech rather than as verbs.  Fun stuff, eh?

Most style guides say that the active voice encourages direct explanations that fall in a natural sequence of words.  Active sentences tend to be shorter, clearer, and more specific.  Passive constructions tend to be wordy, awkward, and vague.  The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association says that while both types of voice are permissible, “many writers overuse the passive voice.” It encourages writers to use active voice “as much as possible to create clear, direct sentences” (American Psychological Association 118).  The Chicago Manual of Style agrees, stating, “As a matter of style, passive voice …  is typically, though not always, inferior to active voice” (University of Chicago Press 264).  They acknowledge that, sometimes, passive might be more appropriate.

Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief of Random House, has some helpful and amusing advice about identifying active or passive voice.  “If you can append ‘by zombies’ to the end of a sentence,” he says, “you’ve indeed written a sentence in the passive voice” (Dreyer 14).  You can also look for these words: was, were, by, and will be.  They do not guarantee the sentence is passive, but the sentences they are in are worth checking closely.

Hemingway Editor and Grammarly have passive voice checkers which are helpful but not always correct or reliable.  They can check for passive voice, but not discern when it may be more appropriate to change voice.  A human writer or editor who understands passive voice, as well as the written content and context, is the best judge of when to use active or passive voice.

So how do we know which voice to use in a given sentence? Here are some questions to consider if you are revising a sentence for voice:

• Where does the reader’s interest lie at this time? Should the performer be emphasized with an active sentence? Is the action more important than the performer? Or is the object or recipient of the action more important than the performer and action?
• Do I have a reason to tame, hide, or delay certain details? Is the performer of the action unknown or unimportant?
• If I use a concrete noun and definite action (in the form of a verb), will I create a more efficient and detailed picture in the reader’s mind?
• Am I trying to avoid using a personal pronoun?
• Would changing the voice of the sentence ease a transition between sentences or paragraphs?
• Have I used too many direct, active sentences? Is there a choppy or repetitive cadence to the paragraph?
• Have I written a sentence that is too long and awkward to comfortably read aloud?
• What voice and arrangement of words will ease the experience for the reader?

Remember, most of the time, the active voice is best.  However, the writer who is willing to give readers the most comfortable and elucidating experience will consider these questions while revising sentence by sentence.  By shifting and changing certain words, we adjust emphasis and affect how our readers build pictures and meaning from our writing.

References
American Psychological Association.  Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.  7th.  Washington: American Psychological Association, 2020.
Dreyer, Benjamin.  Dreyer’s English.  New York: Random House, 2019.
University of Chicago Press.  Chicago Manual of Style.  17th.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

When the comedy troupe Monty Python wanted to make Monty Python and the Holy Grail, big production studios turned them down.  With a smaller purse (one that held funding from Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and others), Monty Python went ahead with a low-budget comedy that continues to entertain across generations and continents.  The constraints meant that instead of setting the story in both the Middle Ages and the twentieth century, they focused on the Middle Ages.  Instead of using the many castles they originally scouted, they used fewer—including one castle that represented three.  Instead of real horses, the characters mimicked riding while someone followed behind, knocking coconut shells together (Morgan).  Would the movie have been as funny with a bigger budget and a more polished production company? Would the coconut shells have made it in?

Author Seth Godin doubts it.  In his book, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work, he asks “Have you ever noticed that big-budget comedies are almost never funny?” (Godin 241).  Godin recognizes the benefits of constraints in the final section of The Practice and encourages working creatives to actively seek them out.

While the writing constraints I’m suggesting will not likely yield hilarious adventures, they will illustrate that imposed limits can help us become better writers in three ways.  They can escort us to the page when needed, challenge us to improve and expand our creativity, and improve the quality of our writing.

Constraints to get us to and through the work

Constraints such as assigned topics, deadlines, and page limits or word counts help us get the work done.  They get us moving when we would otherwise be paralyzed by too much choice or dawdling our days away.  Deadlines mean we can’t wait for inspiration.  Assigned topics and assignment lengths (when used responsibly) keep our thinking and research focused and deep as opposed to broad and shallow.

I regularly impose a time constraint (a minimum of seventeen determined minutes) to enhance my motivation and focus.  I use writing prompts when needed.  I also choose to do my rough work, notes, and early drafts on paper.  Like the walls of a study carrel, these limits block out my options and distractions, helping me focus only on the page and work I have to do in this sprint.

Constraints that challenge and inspire

Creative writers use many constraints to sharpen their skills and enhance creativity and originality.  For example, in writing a sonnet, we have a limit of 14 lines, a prescribed rhyme scheme, and a recommended number of syllables per line.  Plus, depending on which type of sonnet we choose, we have to organize the subject matter into sestets and octets, or quatrains and couplets.  We’re considering imagery, rhythm, diction, theme, and other poetic devices.

Flash fiction is the shortest of short stories, ranging from a few words to a few hundred.  Limits challenge us but also help determine the scope of content.  The writer must consider what dramatic elements will fit best in a frame of this size.

Maybe you’re brave enough to try some other forms of constrained writing.  How about lipograms (deliberately avoiding words containing a particular letter)? What about drabbles (containing only a hundred words) or maybe six-word memoirs? Admit it, these do sound kind of fun.

Constraints that clear the clutter

Certain constraints (like word counts or limits on paragraph or sentence length) can force us to evaluate the effectiveness of every word.  William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, estimates that “most first drafts can be cut by fifty percent without losing any information or losing the author’s voice” (Zinsser 16).  We sharpen our writing by continually asking ourselves if our language is concrete, concise, and clear.  Can I make this sentence or paragraph shorter? Can I cut adverbs, adjectives, or vague wording? Can I use more specific verbs or nouns?

While revising non-fiction works or academic papers, we could enforce a limit of one well-presented topic per paragraph.  Go back to basics.  Begin with a topic sentence.  Supply our explanations and support.  Then conclude and connect to the next paragraph.  Constraints can build better paragraphs and thus improve clarity, flow, and pacing for the reader.

If we’re clear about who our readers are, we can devise and apply targeted constraints accordingly.  Maybe shorter sentences are in order.  Maybe our draft is too wordy.  MS Word offers readability statistics on how many words, paragraphs, and sentences are in the document.  It provides averages of sentences per paragraph, words per sentence, and characters per word.  It also tells us the score for Flesch Reading Ease, the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level, and the percentage of passive sentences in the document.  Another tool is the Hemingway Editor, which can provide a readability score and draw attention to adverbs, passive voice, and complicated phrasing.

These are just a few examples of constraints we can apply to our writing practice.  Through deadlines, timed sprints, prompts, challenges, style restrictions, and precise language, we’re building skill, creativity, and confidence—skills any writer should be striving for.

“And now for something completely different.” (Monty Python, various)

References
Godin, Seth.  The Practice: Shipping Creative Work.  Penguin Publishing Group, 2020.
Morgan, David.  Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  2014.  22 January 2024. Retrieved from https://www.montypython.com/film_Monty%20Python%20and%20the%20Holy%20Grail%20(1975)/15.
Zinsser, William.  On Writing Well.  Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2006.

The assigned essay is an awkward task.  In his book, Writing with Power, Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process, Peter Elbow acknowledges that “when you write for a teacher you are usually swimming against the stream of natural communication.  The natural direction of communication is to explain what you understand to someone who doesn’t understand it.  But in writing an essay for a teacher your task is usually to explain what you are still engaged in trying to understand to someone who understands it better” (Elbow 219).  With every sentence of our argument, are we also somehow leaking out our fears that maybe we got it wrong or maybe our thinking isn’t good enough?

Part of the problem is that we are not writing to our instructor or professor, but rather we are writing for them, and for their evaluation of our writing and thinking.  In the assigned essay, the audience we are writing to is nebulous, faceless, and known only as the general reader.  Plus, we’re usually ditching our first-person point of view.

What if we wrote a letter to someone instead? We could state our views as our own, use personal pronouns, raise questions, take on a more personal tone, toss ideas with less fear, and visualize a specific audience.

You might ask, why waste precious work time on a letter that you might not send, on writing that isn’t directly part of the task? My answer: You were stuck.  This can help you get unstuck.  This could break the block.

Here’s a helpful story I recently heard about Tom Wolfe and his 1963 Esquire article that launched him to new levels of fame.

Before Wolfe queried Esquire with his story idea about the custom car culture burgeoning in southern California, he had already been working as a journalist, mostly for newspapers.  He had been experimenting with a more literary approach to journalism (a style that became known as the New Journalism).  When Esquire took him up on his idea, Wolfe was a capable, productive, and respected writer.

But, after flying out to California, immersing himself in this culture for weeks, taking notes, watching cars zoom by, and conducting interviews, Wolfe became stuck.  He was blocked and overwhelmed, unable to get the story going.  He didn’t know how he wanted to approach the article, or if he was even able to understand everything he had learned and observed.  And his deadline was looming.

So, he wrote to his editor at Esquire, Byron Dobell, and confessed he couldn’t go ahead with the story.  Dobell told Wolfe the story had to run, even if someone else wrote it; the coloured photo spreads had already been printed.  Dobell asked Wolfe to submit his notes and then they’d look for “a competent writer” to handle it.  Not a great self-esteem moment for Wolfe, I’m sure.

Wolfe sat at his typewriter and wrote a letter to Byron Dobell describing what he saw, heard, learned, thought, and felt.  He wasn’t pressured and he didn’t have anything to lose.  Because he had effectively backed out of the story already, he wasn’t writing for the Esquire audience, nor for the culture he had been studying.  He was just writing a letter to Dobell to try to ease, however slightly, a difficult situation.

However, as he was typing, more and more details poured out of him.  In the end, Wolfe wrote that letter for eight or nine hours and produced almost fifty pages of type.  Dobell cut the “Dear Byron” part and ran the rest with the title “There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby” (Dewey).  No other writer was required.  And Wolfe had pulled himself out of writer’s block by approaching the task indirectly.

When facing a block, Elbow advises (in Writing with Power) two different types of writing: “very practical writing” and “very impractical writing” (Elbow 227).  By practical writing, Elbow means something that is crafted for action—to make a change in the world or at least in someone’s mind.  A letter is an example.

Very impractical writing is writing everything—even the crummy words and weak ideas—and not caring if anything happens as a result of what is written down.  Some people call this freewriting, others may call it stream-of-consciousness writing.

In his letter to Dobell, Wolfe seemed to be doing both.  He was writing a letter to his editor (a practical way of handling the frustrating situation), but then the letter turned into impractical writing as he felt free enough to let everything flow out.

By writing a letter to someone specific, we’re indirectly approaching our target.  We start in a comfortable form: a letter to someone else conveying our learning, thinking, and wondering.  We’re free to talk about the challenges of the assignment and the connections we’re making to other materials and content.  In the letter, we explain as if our friend or acquaintance truly wants to know and requires our help to understand.  Once we’re unblocked and thinking clearly, then we transform that writing into the assignment’s specific requirements and final format.

Freewriting is another indirect option.  To do this we grab some paper, set a timer, and unload our thinking and learning.  We aim to generate lots and lots of ideas, words, connections, and images; and we keep writing to empty our minds but fill the pages with messy writing and thinking.  At this stage, we should not fear bad writing or ideas.  We don’t want audience members sitting on our shoulders, dangling their feet and tapping their fingers.  We don’t want whispers in our ears or their premature judgements of our every thought, word, and imaginative flourish.

It’s only by producing as much rough stuff as possible that we can begin to see something take shape.  Sometimes trying to write into a prescribed mould can restrict us, tempt us onto premature revisions, and smother any spark that might have been trying to get out.  After freewriting, and once we’ve given all those pages some time and close reading, then we can consider the purpose, audience, and point of view that are required for the original assignment.

Writing a letter and freewriting are two surprising but helpful ways to break a writer’s block.  Although they are indirect routes to your finish line, they’re way better than staying stuck at the start.

References
Elbow, Peter.  Writing with Power, Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Radical Wolfe.  Dir.  Richard Dewey.  Prods.  Richard Dewey, Andy Fortenbacher and Chris Lazlo.  Kino Lorber, 2023.