It is official. I am a word geek according to most of my friends. But to be honest I am happy to admit it. But I want to explain why! What is it about the power of words that draws me?
Words are a force, a powerful force. They speak things into being, they have the potential to build, to create or to break down. In the spoken form they can make someone laugh, cause tears or invoke a maelstrom of emotion. The words you choose can make someone feel they can take on the world. Words can attach wings to a person’s dream and help them fly. Or they can brutalise someone’s heart causing damage and destruction beyond belief. Words are never neutral.
Words are a vehicle, they take you on a journey, they can take you anywhere you want to go. With words I can take you to a far away place you have never seen. Somewhere you can feel the tickle of cold grass beneath your bare feet, as a warm gentle breeze caresses your face. The sky above is flecked with wispy white clouds, which hang lazily in the sky, as if they are waiting for the day to end. You look up and see a flash of blue in the distance as the sun extends its fingers of light to the earth and causes the mighty ocean to sparkle like diamonds. You can hear the melody of waves as they crash and dance on the shore, dancing to the rhythm of creation.
Or words can take you to a street in your city. You see a woman hunched down, sat on the floor. Her arms are clasped tightly around her knees as if she is afraid to let go. Her own embrace is the only place in the world she feels safe, so she clings on as if her very existence depends on it. Her head is bowed and as you walk towards her she looks up and catches your gaze. It makes you start, because although her face is young, her eyes are old. They are battle worn and carrying the shards of shattered dreams which now cut her when she thinks about what might have been. You can see the desperation, and the dying embers of the hope she once had that her life can change. Her eyes betray the loneliness that has become her only companion , one which seeks to suffocate and overwhelm her life. In that moment of connection you must decide whether to let your worlds collide or retreat to your separate universe of comfort and contentment. My words introduced you to this woman, and at the same time they made you think about how you respond to others. Words can create pictures as clear as any piece of art and in doing so leave an impression on your heart.
Words are like music, like art, like any other creative activity. To me being a writer is like creating a sculpture. Bit by bit you carefully chip away at what started life as a shapeless piece of stone. You carve the intricate features, polish and embellish with those details which make the difference between something worthy of being on a mantlepiece, or something finely crafted to be displayed in a museum!
Words are art, they can live and breath on a page. Sometimes when I write the words just tumble out, I reach a place where I am not even thinking, not even processing. It is like a musician who hits their zone, they aren’t playing their instrument they are talking through it with sensitivity and feel which can move a listener to tears and stir a listeners emotions. Like a painter whose brushstrokes become part of him, he isn’t thinking, he is just expressing what is in his heart and his paintbrush becomes his voice. Words are a flow, a torrent which can gush out of you. Sometimes I can’t stop, I simply have to get the words out on the page. If I’m feeling inspired words can burn like a fire inside me, the only way to quench its ferocity is to write, to set them free on the page.
So yes I am a ‘word geek’. Words help me make sense of the world, they awaken my creativity and imagination. Words express life, they are a tool to colour and connect my thoughts and feelings to the world and those around me.
The words you use colour your world so choose your them wisely and start to express yourself through the beauty of words.
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