There are countless stressful, eye-bleed moments that are strewn across the landscape that is my life. Yet the ones that often rise to prominence in my mind are the moments when writing have been involved. That paper that is due tomorrow and I haven't picked up a pencil. That report on Ulysses S. Grant that must be turned into Mr. Gunn next period and all I know about the former president is that he was a former president.
Now don't get me wrong. Much of blame, and blood loss, is of my own making. OK, all of the blame! I am a procrastinator. I have always thought, “why do today what I can put off till tomorrow?” Even so, while I don't feel that putting things off is a commendable or even advantageous non-virtue, I have had great success in my writing when I have waited till the proverbial last minute.
The morning after is always a hard one. I would stay up all night, slaving away on a War and Peace sized report that was due the next day, get about 5 hours of sleep, and then wake up feeling as if a enormous rubber band was strung around myself and the bed. It is a wonder I even had pants on I would be so tired. Nevertheless, I would usually receive a B grade or so. Success!
All the adults would say to me, “You know, imagine the grade you would have received if you had spent more time on it.” “Yeah,” I would quietly concede. “But I got a B! Did you see that!?”
I had done a small amount of research on President Grant for one of my freshman high school history classes. And only during a shop class the period before it was due did I decide to compile the measly folder of information into what one might call a report. Whether I had forgot the due date or not, I would have called that cutting it close. I achieved a B- on that project.
Now that I have entered into higher education, I have mitigated that proclivity substantially. I no longer wait till the last minute, I merely wait until the last hour; or so.
Okay, I get it--more or less forget my last comment on volcanoes, seeds, etc. I can see you're a joker, into the Higher Facetiousness, perhaps a secret reader of PG Wodehouse (and if not, why not?)
ReplyDeleteLife is too serious to NOT kid about it! I can do Facetious! I can help you with it in your writing too:
Here you play two things off, pretty successfully: the mundane task of wrangling US Grant onto the page with the fancy vocabulary and hyperbole you use to describe this exercise.
And that works here just fine. But fancy vocab/hyperbole generally scare me, as they can be the equivalent of heroin for a writer: maybe fun but highly addictive and likely in the end to lead to overuse and tragedy, or at least a bad nod-off.
Keep it in mind!
;)
Honestly, I am one of freakish few who use big words as part of my natural vocabulary. Not because I am trying to flaunt my huge intellect :) but I just enjoy it. There are many words and I like to use them. At the suggestion of CS Lewis I try not to use large words for everything otherwise when a large word is actually necessary, you have no words left. Now spelling many of those words is another matter entirely.
ReplyDeleteBut take a phrase like this: "I have mitigated that proclivity substantially. "
ReplyDeleteThat's way overkill. "I don't do it as much" means the same thing, all in single syllable words. Take a look at my other comment from this morning. I don't want a mini-me, but a good clean prose style is good and clean. As Paul said about charity, "[It]Vaunteth Not Itself, Is Not Puffed Up."
The thing, and what perhaps CS Lewis was getting at, is that (now I'm thinking Ecclesiastes!), everything has its season: there's a time for big words and a time for small and simple ones. The writer has to discern the correct times and then figure out what the tone should be and the vocabulary necessary to achieve that tone.