6 keys from the edge…

I’ve been chatting with a pal…its this thing you do where you sit back and watch as a window seemingly materializes on your screen and words appear. Your hands receive a message from the brain. They respond and they proceed to hack away at the keyboard until the letters come together in a union that makes sense. This union is called a “word”. It’s a beautiful thing this, “word”. So beautiful in fact, some times, these words beget words and before you know it, a cluster of words is in front of you. That’s not to say that words form only on PC…far from it, but the words before you got here that way.

They made their clusters and by gosh, they made sentences. But as is wont to happen, these things grow out of hand and sentences beget sentences and a paragraph is born. The cycle continues… I don’t know how poems work… it’s a whole new ball game there… but one thing is for sure, writing begins with just the one word…the little word that could.

Now ages ago, no one knows how far back and honestly, no one really cares, people discovered words. It was a gigantic leap from playing drums and thumping chests which, as you can imagine had all sorts of complications springing forth, like asthma and Hip Hop. So words were discovered and they were strung together to form sentences and stories and subpoenas. They were also put together to form what people call scripts, but hardly ever use because words don’t look pretty without repeat appearances by the letter “R”…come to think of it, words don’t sound pretty with repeated rrrrs.

As words came together some people looked on and tried to understand what the deal was. Because this was tideous,they settled for the spot on the couch or bench or whatever and read the words put together by others. We shall call these readers. Its only fair, they also call us names.

Those with abilities to marry words to beget families were few and far between. They were, as the French would say, scarce. The French say a lot of things and that is a fact that can not be disputed. SO anyway, these writers did their thing and the readers looked on from the side lines, some content, some with disdain and some with a strong conviction that they too could write.

Then suddenly something went awry, writing ceased to be a thing that only the brainy sorts would do…sure they still did it and we suffer through their bloody textbooks and pamphlets, but nonetheless the realization dawned. Writing was something that could be done. All one had to do was try. And try many did…and fail, but try nonetheless and they certainly deserve some sort of credit for trying, though it would have been way better if he’d in fact gotten posted to Sudan.

Curiously, some that could, didn’t bother trying. It would seem like “coming out”. And no one wants that…no. But those that did seldom had regrets, the few that did, well they got over them.

Life goes on and with each passing day someone else discovers that (s)he can actually put words together…whether these are words shared is an entirely different issue. And also with each passing day, others discover that they too can fashion statements…statements damning those that put their thoughts down, put their opinions out there.
We are writers and, like it or not, we do the write thing.