“Hi, this is a comment.” Really? It reminds me of when we took our first tour with a pretty real estate lady, “This is the kitchen. This is the bathroom. This is the bedroom…” Really? I can see that. You don’t say? Honey, we’re going to have a great day, and maybe, just maybe we’ll learn something like, what a kitchen is, what a bathroom is and what a bedroom is.”

It’s called communicating. Better said, it is putting your words in proper order and arrangement so you communicate better with those on the same galaxy as you. (You don’t need to worry about those on other galaxies, at least not momentarily.)

Life is amusing. People don’t mean to say stupid things. They just arrange their words in a stupid manner so that it sounds that way.
You can’t fix stupidity but you can fix the way you arrange your words and the way you express yourself.

Similar to when I was in my youth and I asked my librarian something beginning with, “Can I ask you a stupid question?” and she replied, “There is no such thing as a stupid question.” Meaning, we all learn things other people already know.

So, I’m being nice to my imaginary real estate lady because she is so pretty and so friendly. Like the old cliché, ‘it isn’t what you say, but how you say it.’

Communicating is expressing ourselves to others. The clearer we write and speak the easier it is for others to understand us. We all learn. We learn from others and we learn from our own mistakes. Correct our mistakes don’t condemn them. Be nice and fix the things that are broken in our lives and in our communication systems.

As William Strunk teaches in his masterpiece “The Elements of Style” …”All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation—it is the Self escaping into the open. No writer long remains incognito.”

Some people write and speak with a style and rhythm or cadence that makes their words sing.

While some writers, speakers and communicators will cut adjectives from their sentences, the addition of adjectives can make the difference of a combination of words singing or dropping like a bird with broken wings would drop from the sky. Creating beauty, excitement and interest like any good salesperson worth their salt would do, can be done with careful composing without overkill.

Had my imaginary real estate friend added a few adjectives in the right places her words would have sung like a song in a singer’s recording studio and perhaps made the difference of a sale or no sale. Just as a writer sells himself to his readers, rather he or she has few readers or many depend upon the composition and style of one’s writing.

The real estate lady could have planned her day and what she’d say a little bit better. Since she would have been involved in the same process over and over again in the span of her real estate career she needed to rehearse her sales pitch more. She could make her room presentations sing by saying, “This is a wonderful kitchen, I hope you love it as much as I do!” “I can imagine relaxing in this spacious living room.” “Great bathroom designs begin right here, wouldn’t you agree?” “How could you not enjoy a bedroom this size?”

For a salesperson, adding a little color to your words of communication as well asking open-ended questions not only help a smooth sales pitch, but also aids in gathering the information you need to in order to make a sale. When you meet your buyer’s needs you make a sale. “…wouldn’t you agree?” is the open-ended question in the above example. It requires a yes or no answer. When you meet your buyer’s needs you make a sale. Your content is your inventory. A house is a real estate agent’s content or inventory. The content of your manuscript or book or short story is the inventory you present to your readers. How you present it depends upon how you sing your song. Soar like an eagle or drop like a broken-wing bird.

Rearranging the words so they sing is called editing. We edit to polish our songs. Just as a salesperson rehearses their sales pitch to get it down right we groom our words so our work presents a more interesting content to our readers. Appeal or attraction is everything. Better content, original content, means more readers and more joy for everybody. When we edit, we change, “Hi, this is a comment.” to something like; “Hi, this is the interesting place where comments are made.” Shorter is not always better and size doesn’t always matter. It’s how you use it that counts. If it must be short, one word would do, “Comments.” or the elimination of the entire first silly-arranged line, “Hi, this is a comment.” and saving just the instructions: “To delete a comment, just log in, and view the posts’ comments, there you will have the option to edit or delete them.” In this case dumping the introduction or greeting saves us, the reader, from distractions.

(I hope I’m also showing some readers/writers how-to-avoid writer’s block.)

We don’t need to eliminate every adjective in the Universe just because some writing instructors tell us to do so. Adjectives are every bit part of our communication. We just need to use them much like we would any food in our diet, with moderation.

Cliff Harrison at WordPress isn’t just a blog. It’s an entire world. Cliff Harrison at WordPress is a gateway to an entire universe. Please discover the links under “Cliff Harrison at WordPress” below and take the journey through Cyberspace to find my literary planets and writing worlds. The links are your keys to exploration you won’t find elsewhere in this galaxy or any other blogosphere. And yes, Martha, there is more than one blogosphere. There is an infinite number of blogospheres in Cyberspace. Just as there are many galaxies in the Universe there are many blogospheres in Cyberspace.

If you are a writer you may be particularly interested in “Write On!” which I created before I was aware Stephen King published his nonfiction book “On Writing“.

You will see many of the same articles appearing in some of the weblogs you visit. That is because I am a syndicated writer and many of my syndicated columns are published throughout the blogosphere in my own network of blogs and websites as well as those of other publications owned and operated by others.

So visit us. Discover. Join our forum in the comment community.

My network, the Cliff Harrison Network, is a growing blogosphere of weblogs and websites, nonfiction writing and fiction stories as well as photo galleries and other creative works for you to enjoy. There are over 200 sites in the network alone. So, I don’t always visit each planet on regularly scheduled flights through Cyberspace. If you have a desire to contact me without waiting light-years for a reply please use the Houston Space Center Control Room at riverorganization.org@gmail.com  my most active and most monitored e-mail address.

Enjoy my world.

The Elements of Communication originally appeared as a comment in my blog Cliff Harrison at WordPress and was expanded as a teaching tool for students engaged in a writing apprenticeship. An apprentice of writing is his own master of the craft he desires to learn. Although a student of writing may take writing courses instructed by others she must also master the art of self-education and continued self-learning in the study of her craft. Such discipline is required in order to achieve the solo flight all birds must take in order to one day leave the safe harbor of their nest—and achieve the dream all writers dream—that of becoming a commercially published writer.
                                                                                                         
William Strunk said in his book, The Elements of Style, that the mystery of style could be seen by “…rewriting a familiar sentence and see what happens.”

Rewriting is an element of editing and editing is an element of communication, specifically clear communication. Songs contain keys, notes and chords. The combination and arrangements of individuals and groups is what makes music and what makes masterpieces live for eternity. Keys, notes and chords combined with words, phrases and sentences are what make songs. Writing contains words and phrases and sentences. It’s how you arrange them, the notes and chords and words and phrases and sentences to which determines how they will sing or if they sing.

All but one (the first) of the following are my quotes which live through the eternity of my writing; my quotes and tweets on twitters and in my writing portfolio are what Strunk demonstrates.

Sometimes simply rearranging the words we use in a sentence polishes the sentence into a song that sings. Other times, although it still sings, the new arrangement has a completely different meaning than the original sentence. We can edit to make music, to bring about a better rhythm or style of the same meaning or we can edit to create an entirely different, but similar meaning with words of identical or like characteristics.

Let’s see what Strunk talks about in his tiny book, The Elements of Style, a masterpiece, where his written words have outlived him. The 85-page Elements of Style was written by William Strunk Jr. pre-1919 and was used in Professor Strunk’s own Cornell-college classroom as a textbook. William Strunk Jr. lived from 1869 to 1946. His book still lives on. New editions are still printed. Author Stephen King considers it the one book all aspiring writers should have.

[E.B. White was a student of William Strunk Jr. at Cornell University in New York in 1919 in which the former first learned about The Elements of Style. Strunk's original book written in 1918 was about 45-pages long. E.B. White later revised The Elements of Style and expanded his co-written edition to about 85 pages. That is why the book is now published with the cover inscription  and entitled:  William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White The Elements of Style.]

“Writers are all apprentices in a craft where no one becomes a master.” –Lezzy Cakez Shawls

“Apprentices who master their craft of writing will become the masters of their own trade.” –Cliff Harrison

“Writing is a craft where the apprentice has no master, but all apprentices must master their craft.” –Cliff Harrison

“Mastering the craft of writing is really something a writer can only do solo.” –Cliff Harrison

“The penalty of mastering the craft of writing is living the state of solitary confinement.” –Cliff Harrison

“The penalty of mastering the craft of writing is enduring the prolonged state of solitary confinement.” –Cliff Harrison

“The craft of writing is best mastered in the state of solitary.” –Cliff Harrison

“The solitary craft of writing is always mastered alone.” –Cliff Harrison

“The craft of writing is always mastered in solitary.” –Cliff Harrison

“Writing is a craft of solitary mastery.” –Cliff Harrison

The Devil & Me
By Cliff Harrison

I shouldn’t let the cat out of the bag and go spoiling a good story prematurely, but I’ll tell you why I chose the title, “Five Feet from the Finish Line.”  That’s what it feels like.

One of the stories I’ll publish one day in an up and coming installment of The Devil & Me is about a snowmobile race I was in back in the 70s. There I was leading the pack darn near a half a lap ahead of the nearest snowmobile coming up on the finishing line. Five feet before the finish line my drive belt broke, stopping me dead in my tracks.

There I sat unable to even push my sled across the line for a win. I was clearly ahead for most of the race and I only had sixty inches to cross the finish line and be the winner to take home the trophy. Sixty inches!

I just shook hands with the devil and thanked him as sled after sled passed me by as if poking fun at me for being that close to a winner only to be the worst loser of the entire race–dead last.

I feel like that now. Five feet from the finish line.

I’ve got so many writing projects that I just know are winners but I can’t even get up enough energy to get them put together and published in the organized order they need to be in. Five feet from the finish line is where I am at stuck with a broken drive belt that went just like that.

I guess today I’ll make more than one entry in my journal.

I can see the finish line. I can touch the finish line. I just can’t get across the finish line. It’s like in my mind as if I’m a cowboy in one of those old western movies and I’m crawling in the desert trying to reach the watering hole that is really nothing but a mirage while buzzards circle overhead. I’m just about there. But almost isn’t good enough and those birds of prey are starting to call out to one another communicating about the bodacious dinner that’s coming up.

Better men than me would have committed suicide by now. Just end it. Put themselves out of their misery. But not me. I like hanging around and giving the devil a hard time.

There are too many demons in this world to just up and leave them. It’s more fun hanging around and making their life miserable like they do God’s Children.

So, I guess I’ll just have to plug along and do what work I can. My writing could be so much better if I didn’t have this demon inside of me holding me back while draining my energy.

Well, what do you know? I meant this to be an entry for my journal. But you know what? I just wrote a piece for The Devil & Me. Why not? Maybe I can push my sled over the finish line.

The Devil & Me is a syndicated column by Cliff Harrison