Power of the Written Word

To a writer a particular turn of phrase or a well written sentence or two can stop us in our tracks and simply make us beam with delight. This happened this morning as I finished a book I started yesterday. The last two sentences just had me saying, "Wow!"

"And in the gardens of Harper House, someone walked, and raged, and grieved. With mad eyes burning into the candy-blue sky." ~ (Nora Roberts, Black Rose, New York, June 2005 355)

It has even greater impact when you know that "someone" is the crazed ghost of a great-grandmother of the main character. Black Rose is the second in the Nora Roberts In the Garden series. Marvelous series, wonderful stories, richly developed characters . . . I've reread these books over and over.

The power of the written word is immense, whether fiction or nonfiction it matters not. A good writer can paint such a vivid picture and story in your mind that you are immediately drawn into it, living each moment as if you were a character in the book.

For me, Nora Roberts is one of those writers. Yes, there is no question she is what I call a page skipper. Meaning, there are scenes I prefer not to read, so I skip those pages and pick up where the story starts again. But she is truly an amazing writer. With a few choice words, she paints such a brilliant picture in the my mind its as if the scene jumped off the page and I am standing at the edge of Harper House gardens watching a severely disturbed ghost rant and rave as she wanders.

This is part of what makes writing worthwhile to me. If in the stories I create I can pull the reader in, so much so that they feel the cold when I am describing a brutal winter scene, or their heartbeat speeds up and their breath begins to catch, then I know I've written the story well. This is what I strive for when creating my stories.

I always start with a germ of an idea, just something simple, even three simple words have spawned an entire book in my mind. I seek out the areas where I need to research and off I go. Then the creative process begins. Literally, when I'm not exhausted out of my mind, the story begins to move forward in my mind like a Hollywood movie. When I'm writing a tense scene, I'm tense. As the author I'm right smack dab in the middle of the action and there's no other place I'd rather be.

And so every morning I sit down at my computer, read over what I've written already (yes, I'm a fast reader), make adjustments and then let the story pour out of me.

The power of the written word is an amazing thing. Like the joy others gain from a beautiful work of art I gain from the written word.

And just for fun, there are some people who just have too much time on their hands. This woman has taught her dog to dance to Grease's "You're the One That I Want." The dog is doing John Travolta's part . . . hmmm.