TheWritersBag.com

Years ago I was standing in a line at a bank in El Salvador waiting for a teller. The customer at the teller’s window was an American. There was a man behind him. I was third in line. The American, obviously upset about something, was brutally berating the teller.

As this went on, the man standing between the abusive customer and me turned to me, cocked one eyebrow, and in an English accent whispered, “A decidedly unpleasant individual!”

I’ll never forget how effective his comment was. It had much more impact on me than if he had said, “What a jerk!”

Yesterday Michelle posted a comment asking, “What would be one way that a person could increase their vocabulary? Since I have no formal training as a writer (but love to write) and am a busy parent right now with no time for school, is there something that I might do? I feel like if I had more words to use, my writing would be better.”

Good question. Having a strong vocabulary is definitely important to your writing, no matter what sort of writing you do. It’s wonderful to be able to come up with just the right word at just the right time. It’s frustrating and time-consuming when you can’t. Plus, it interrupts the flow of your writing.

Here are a few good ways to build your vocabulary:

1. Keep a small notebook with you at all times. Whenever you hear or read a word you don’t know, write it down. Then, when you are home or at the office, pull out your dictionary (or bring it up on your computer) and write down the meaning of the word. It will also help to jot down a sentence that uses the word properly. Review your list of words regularly. Use them in your writing and speech when appropriate. When you are sure you have mastered a particular word, place an “x” by it.
2. Go online. There are many Web sites for vocabulary building (such as www.vocabulary.com) that offer interactive learning experiences.
3. Buy a vocabulary calendar – the kind with a new word for each day of the year – and be disciplined enough to use it.
4. Buy any of the number of “30 Days to a New Vocabulary”-type books. Again, use it.

Of these four methods of building vocabulary, I think the first is the most effective because it helps you learn the words that are actually being used. (If you ran into them once, you’ll likely run into them again.) There’s nothing wrong with learning tons of new words that you may never again hear or read, but learning vocabulary that is actually being used will be a more profitable use of your time.

One last tip: Learn the common roots of words. This will help you understand their meanings. I once read that at least half the words in the English language are derived from Latin and Greek roots. Learn these roots and you can often guess the meanings of words you don’t know. Here are a few examples of these roots to show you what I mean:

• audi = to hear (audience, audible)
• bene = good, well (beneficial, benevolent)
• bio = life (biology, biography)
• dic, dict = to speak (dictate, dictator)
• graph = to write (graphic, pictograph, epigraph)
• log, logue = word, speech, thought (dialog, monolog)
• logy = study of (psychology, biology)
• manu = hand (manufacture, manuscript)
• phil = love (philosophy, philanthropy)
• sopho, sophy = knowledge (theosophy, sophist)
• theo = god, divinity (theology, theocracy)

One word of caution: As you build your vocabulary, beware of using “big, fancy” words just to show off your knowledge. In my next article, I’ll discuss this common writing mistake.

People who like to write are a unique breed.

Most writers prefer to move slowly, contemplating their thoughts and surroundings as they go, rather than racing ahead focusing on what they’re driving or on their destination. Writers would rather go snowshoeing in a forest than skiing at a crowded resort. They would rather be on a sailboat than a motorboat. They would prefer to walk up an alpine slope than zoom up it on a four-wheeler.

Writers are made to be walkers. Or vice versa. Whichever way it goes, walking and the writer’s soul seem to be inextricably connected.

“If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish,” said Charles Dickens.

In his book, Walking, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”

The fact is, walking gives the writer’s mind space and time to contemplate and meditate. In that space and time, the body is busy, while the mind naturally relaxes and clarifies itself, like a pond of muddy water clearing again after people have run through it.

“Thoughts come clearly while one walks,” said the German writer, Thomas Mann.

Thomas Hobbes, the noted English writer and philosopher, had an inkhorn built into his walking stick so he could scribble down notes on his frequent walks.

Walking is a sort of physical mantra that invites meditative clarity – a more physically involved form of counting prayer beads. Consciously attempting to bring thoughts, ideas and concepts to the surface of your consciousness can be a daunting task. But when you go on a walk and allow your mind and emotions to relax, you will find that your subconscious mind will often float those elusive thoughts effortlessly to the surface. It’s like the difference between trying to herd a bunch of cats into a bag and stepping away and leaving the bag wide open with some irresistible catnip inside.

“I can only meditate when I am walking,” Thoreau explained. “When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.” He also said, “Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”

For William Wordsworth, walking was essential to writing. He once made a 2,000-mile journey on foot, and went walking almost every day of his long life. He is said to have composed most of his poems while walking. A visitor once asked Wordsworth’s servant to show him her master’s study. “Here is his library,” she said, “but his study is out of doors.”

The Danish writer/philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was also a walker. In his journals he insisted that he composed all his works afoot. “Every day,” he said, “I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”

In addition to walking’s power to help us access our best thoughts, Kierkegaard’s comment points to another benefit of walking – one that should interest writers whose work forces them to be sedentary much of the time: Walking is healthy.

“When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the shoe leather has passed into the fiber of your body,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was an avowed, lifetime walker. “I measure your health by the number of shoes and hats and clothes you have worn out.”

French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau summed it up in his Confessions when he wrote, “Never did I think so much, exist so vividly, and experience so much, never have I been so much myself – if I may use that expression – as in the journeys I have taken alone and on foot. There is something about walking which stimulates and enlivens my thoughts. When I stay in one place I can hardly think at all; my body has to be on the move to set my mind going.”

Me? I have been hooked on walking and writing since I can remember.

These days I walk at least an hour a day at least six days a week. I walk alone and I meditate/contemplate as I walk. I take multi-day walks in the mountains and the red rock canyon country with a backpack.

When I walk my body is relieved of the cramps and aches that have built up after sitting for long hours writing on my computer or in my notebook. Everything inside me relaxes. My mind becomes calm and clear. My external and internal worlds clarify, just as reflections in a pond become clearer in the calm after a wind. Thoughts that I have struggled to grasp at my desk often float to the surface of my conscious mind on their own when I walk. Confusing issues sort themselves out. New and sometimes surprising ideas flow.

Like Kierkegaard, I walk myself into a state of well-being and into my best thoughts when I go walking. If walking is not a part of your writing life, make it so. You may become addicted, but it’s a wonderful addiction.

Good writers know how to pay attention to what is happening around them. They use the insights and details of what they observe to inform and enliven their writing, whether they’re working on business reports or Nobel Prize-winning novels.

I recently read a great story (apocryphal, I’m sure) that went like this:

A group of beginning medical students went to their first anatomy class. They gathered around a surgery table supporting a human corpse covered by a white sheet.

The professor said, “There are two qualities you will have to have if you want to succeed as a doctor. First, you must not be disgusted by anything that has anything to do with the human body.”

With that, the professor pulled the sheet off the corpse, inserted his finger into an incision in its stomach, stirred it around, and then put his finger into his mouth and sucked it.

“Now I want each of you to do the same thing,” he said.

The students were aghast. Finally, one stepped forward, pushed his finger into the incision, and then put it in his mouth and sucked. One by one, each of the students followed suit until all were standing back in their places, looking slightly sicker than the corpse.

“You’re probably wondering what the second essential quality is,” the professor said. “It’s the ability to pay attention. I stuck my middle finger into the incision, but I put my index finger in my mouth.”

The habit of carefully observing the world and its people is a vital one for a writer – I would say even more important than for a doctor. When Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage,” he really meant it – at least from a writer’s point of view. While others were “strutting and fretting their hour upon the stage,” Shakespeare was observing and taking notes … at least mentally, if not in a notebook.

That’s our lot in life as writers. We’re typically not the ones out there stirring things up, creating the noise and motion of life. We’re the ones watching, paying attention, and remembering what we see, hear and feel. That’s the stuff of our writing, no matter what type of writing we do.

The bad news is, it has never been more difficult to pay attention. Why? Technology is the prime culprit. Everywhere you look, you see people with cell phones on their ears or headphones in their ears. You see others who have been absorbed into digital computer screens. Walkers, drivers, joggers and bikers are not soaking in the sights, sounds and smells of the world around them. They are caught up in music created in a sound-proof studio in Southern California or carrying on a phone conversation – probably an unnecessary one – just to kill the time.

No one’s minds and senses are where their physical bodies are anymore. Their consciousnesses have been abducted into digital shadowlands, far removed from the here and now of reality.

This cannot be good for people in general. For the writer, it is a death sentence.

While cell phones, digital displays and certain high-tech toys have largely become unavoidable parts of modern living, writers must use them and then push them aside and pay close attention to the real world around them.

In a future article, we’ll discuss how to hone our observation skills in order to pay closer attention and become better writers.