I give you my word(s)

I give you my word. One word. That’s a verbal contract in a single word, Yes or no, I will or I won’t.

That’s final. The last word. You can take it to the bank.

But I’ve lived long enough to know it’s not the very last word, beyond the last unspoken, beyond gesture like a handshake, or a nod of the head.

We say, “I take your meaning.” That’s assumption, that you know my meaning, and you’ve taken it as agreement. That’s tacit approval, “goes without saying,” “beyond words.” But I’ve lived long enough to know that’s not enough. We want to be sure. Even the last word can leave us hanging in uncertainty. We grab the useful agents beyond words which help us define, tell us where we are, and come to terms. Punctuation. We have a range. Period. Period means the very end, no more words, nothing left to say, that’s it. Period.

But I’ve lived long enough to know that none of this is final. Things change. Words change. Meaning changes. We hire lawyers to say, “What he meant is not what he said.”

It’s “too complicated for words.” And too complicated for me. And not what I wanted to talk about.

I wanted to talk about the (s). Words. Plural. More than one. Because I love words. I’m still trying to be comfortable with them, to know if and how and when I have to master them.

“Master” may not be the right word. I do want the right word, for everything. I want to put the words together so I can give them as a gift. That means a lot to me, being able to give.

I want to give of myself, to give myself, to give my words, because I’ve put myself into words and want to share, hoping to do some good in the world.

But I’m always still learning how complicated it all is. I need to be sure, if I think I can get the words right, that others will accept them in the spirit in which they’re given. That’s why, if I send them to a magazine, I should read the magazine first to know the words they like and want and will accept. The Editors have their own taste for words. They have hundreds and thousands of words to go through, so they have to read fast. I have to catch them at the beginning so they won’t just say “No” and not read the rest.

I’ve lived long enough to know that Editors are like the words they read, and if what I send isn’t what they like, I shouldn’t send. I shouldn’t waste their time and lose mine by waiting.

I’ve lived long enough to know that often I get it wrong. I have boxes and files that say so. Like the Editor whose reply I recently re-read and re-filed again, I’m not quite sure where, which said something like: “I read your little bio and was so looking forward, and then you send me this little crappy piece of ____, what the hell!”
I can’t re-read that often enough.

Which reminds me again that writers write different, and readers read different, and sometimes they match, like the writers who write straight line to get to the end for the readers who say, “Don’t bore me with the details, just get to the point!” which of course means the final period.

Then there are the writers who don’t just write the straight and narrow. They go from simple non- to fiction and poetry and take the round-about. They want us to see and feel and think about in various blends, depending on how they themselves respond and what they want from their readers. Some writers are very good at action and choose verbs to move things along. Some are good at visualizing and reach for adjectives and adverbs, modifiers, to make us see. Some go even further to make us feel and think about a larger world, a better world, and words can give us that experience and show us how to make it real.

Some writers aren’t very good at visualizing, so, even if we get motivation, and implication, and even the philosophy of deepest understanding, sometimes we say, “But I don’t know what it looks like, I can’t picture the characters in my mind.”
And sometimes writers get so sidetracked by particular obsessions that we say, “I don’t see where this is going, looks like it’s going nowhere.” Sometimes, often, that’s because the writers don’t know themselves where they’re going, and often don’t know they don’t know.

It’s all too complicated for me. I want to throw up my hands and surrender. “I give up! I can’t do it! I don’t even know what I want to do anymore! Maybe I should just lie down and go to sleep.”

But then words wake me up. They won’t let me sleep in peace. They come into my head and I can’t keep them out. So I give in, and keep trying, keep working at it.
And so my Editor Daughter (everybody should have one) says, “Dad, you need to flesh it out. Add more. Give us the visuals. What do the characters look like? Let us form the pictures in our head, find those words. How can I find illustrations for the book if I don’t know what to look for?”

Of course she’s right. But then I have that special fear, and I’ve lived long enough to know it well. Even if I can find the words to picture in my mind, what if the illustrator doesn’t see it the way I do? And even if I get the words right so they do see it as I do, what if they can’t get it down, because drawing is like writing, it’s hard to get it right. And once you get it down in pictures, it’s too late. You can’t un-see it. It’s entered your mind through your eyes and takes over, like a terminal disease. Even after that’s the way it is, and you can’t even go back to earlier when your mind made up the pictures, and now all you can say is, “No! That’s not the way it’s supposed to look!” because the infected present supersedes the struggling memory.

It’s like listening to the radio, and you get the picture because you’ve created it and filled it in. Then they make a movie, and you may say, “No! That’s not right, not the way…” and you can do nothing about it, or very very little, because the image has taken your mind out of your own control.

It’s like taking something three dimensional, like life, and flattened it to two dimensions on a screen, and you lose the depth of perspective, and the pace of action is controlled by someone else, and you cry, “What have I lost?!” and “Why can’t I have it all?!”

So, yes, it’s too much for me. I’ve lived long enough to know that just being aware of problems won’t solve them. But I’ve lived long enough to believe that it helps.

And I want to help.

So I won’t quit trying.

So there! That’s it!

For now.

Period. Stop.

But not final stop.

For now.