Sunday, September 23, 2018

WITH WORDS AS BRICKS WRITING IS A CONSTRUCTION JOB



“words are the tools of writing.”
But not quite so!
Words, in fact, are the bricks and mortars we select and gather to build a structure. Its architecture and construction are based on our thoughts, opinions, and feelings, perceptions and impressions, or sharing of information, knowledge, and experiences.
In our learning faculty, there is a library of words being accumulated from early childhood. We retrieve them from our memory cells to begin the composition of a story, novel, essay, poetry, and all other literary and non-literary works or writing a simple personal diary.
Moreover, voluminous dictionaries offer thousands of words stacked in alphabetical order.
Just like bricks, words are cast in different sizes, but each carrying its own identity and impact. It is in this semantic profile that words give an outlook and character to writing.
Words are liberal in their nature. If a word is not the right one or it does not fit into the rigid demand of a writer, it offers a whole stockpile of alternative synonyms choices.
Words are not the writing tools, but when they are put together by the skills of a wordsmith, the whole composition becomes a tool by itself. Primarily, a composition is the tool of communication which we need as a compliment to speaking. But writing goes beyond spoken words. It stays longer or forever.
Is writing hard work? Not really, so far as there are enough bricks around in different sizes and shapes, along with a sound idea or subject matter, that a structure can be built and redesigned or even renovated.
The technicality of writing lies in its grammar as well as those little but indispensable characters, called punctuation marks, offering control and disciplinary mechanism in this creative development.
However, objectivity, sensitivities, and rationality are the basic guidelines in raising a writing structure which is otherwise stalled when these feelings lack honesty and sincerity.
Under these guidelines, writing offers good companionship. As well as “writing is the only way to talk without being interrupted.”(Jules Renard, novelist, and playwright).

2 comments:

Naveen Gopal said...

Great analogy. So is there an equivalent to the Taj Mahal or Empire State building as far as literary works go?

Promod Puri said...

I don't know about the Empire State building, but there is a lot of poetry written on Taj Mahal, itself called Poem on Stone.