Sunday, May 09, 2010

There is a writer in all of us

You could be a treasure yet to be discovered! "No matter how quiet or gregarious, ordinary or unusual, every person's life is an unfolding  narrative, with it's own cliffhangers, surprises, and touching revelations." The more you read the more likely you will find and acquire reading’s imperative value. Reading and writing is not rocket science. But as the late Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869) said in his famous introduction to the Thesaurus named after him:
"Some, indeed, are more highly gifted than others with this facility of expression, and naturally endowed with the power of eloquence; but to none is it at all times an easy process to embody, in exact and appropriate language, the various trains of ideas that are passing through the mind, or to depict in their true colors and proportions, the diversified and nicer shades of feeling which accompany them. To those who are unpracticed in the art of composition, or unused to extempore speaking, these difficulties present themselves in their most formidable aspect. However distinct may be our views, however vivid our conceptions, or however fervent our emotions, we cannot but be often conscious that the phraseology we have at our command is inadequate to do them justice. We seek in vain the words we need, and strive ineffectually to devise forms of expression which shall faithfully portray our thoughts and sentiments. The appropriate terms, notwithstanding our utmost efforts, cannot be conjured up at will. Like “spirits from the vasty deep,” they come not when we call; and we are driven to the employment of a set of words and phrases either too general or too limited, too strong or too feeble, which suit not the occasion, which hit not the mark we aim at; and the result of our prolonged exertion is a style at once labored and obscure, vapid and redundant, or vitiated by the still graver faults of affectation or ambiguity."
Like Roget. each of us with enough broad based reading can develop a set of words and phrases to become if not a prolific writer, but a fair enough good writer!

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