The homework assignment was to write sentences.
I’m not sure what the content was. Were we using vocabulary words in context? Demonstrating our ability to label subject and predicate?
Whatever it was, my mom leaned over my shoulder as I worked on it, yellow pencil clutched in my young hand. She made a suggestion: why don’t you try to start each sentence with a different letter of the alphabet?
She was not one to interfere too much with my homework, usually trusting me to do well. On that day, with that idea, offered casually, she opened up writing for me.
Her remark contained everything I needed: discipline, creativity, variety, craft. And now when I write, I remember that, and try to follow this advice in letter and in spirit.
Perhaps most importantly, it keeps me from starting each sentence with “I”, though I’m just as self-centered as anyone else and would like to keep the world spinning comfortably around me. When I tempted to turn my writing into a litany of “I”s, I remember my mother’s suggestion and remind myself that I can do better.
Is there any advice you hold close in your heart while you are writing?
Some time ago, more recently than you might imagine, I tried to write an essay about a recent journey. Nervously, I hit send and off it went to the inbox of a writer friend. She sent it back with many comments, but the summary said it all – “Show, don’t tell.”
Looking back at that essay today, I see a lot of hard facts, but no heart. To me, that is the difference between “show, don’t tell.”
That’s a good one – and a tough one!
Become who you are writing for. Of course you have to have someone created, mentally. Creating a world for them, and share with your readers their walk. Use and describe all of the senses to create their world on paper for others.
Trying to write down the major ideas first and minor ideas under them before I get to deep into something helps me. I like your mom’s idea.