WORD CRAFT

​Every child has a ‘woobie’, an object of attachment that offers companionship and security.  For most, it is a doll, stuffed animal, blanket or piece of cloth.  My mother told me I carried a black-and-white marble-covered composition book and a pencil.  She said I would spend hours filling page after page, line after line, with indecipherable runes.  I had filled three of them by the time I was four-years-old, obsessed with writing long before I learned the alphabet. 
​My relationship with the written word is a love affair.  My relationship with writing the words, however, is warfare.  Nothing is more frustrating and enraging than the process of placing one word after another with the intent of producing a single intelligible, uniquely phrased, creatively inspired sentence.  There is also nothing more fascinating and rewarding.  So many words to choose from.  All of them right; all of them wrong.  Yet, of all the arts, writing presents me the greatest challenge and provides me the greatest satisfaction.
​I don’t seem to have a specific genre of writing. The format is determined by content.  My desire to express myself comes packaged in stories, fables, essays,  lyrics, scripts, observations and paper napkins.  It takes me ten minutes to write a note and an hour to inscribe a birthday card.  I wrestle with each and every syllable, and love every minute of it. 

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