Monday Motivation: Keep it simple, scribe
I find that I sometimes get so caught up in the convoluted complexities of my writing that I find myself mired, like a pith-helmeted explorer in quicksand, in my own sesquipedalian orontundities.Sorry, let me read that again:
I sometimes get stuck when I try to express simple thoughts in big words. Or when the sentences I compose get bogged down in their own cleverness. Or when my metaphors are so cumbersome that they distract attention from the point I’m trying to make.
Remember:
Writing works best when it’s simple and direct. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be subtle, and clever, and elegant. It does mean that you can almost always prune and trim your text, thereby exposing the beauty that lies at the heart of it.
Remember what Elmore Leonard says in his book The Ten Rules of Writing: “My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
Keep writing – simply!
Richard
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