Write or Wrong*

Funny, how things come your way.

When you create a blog you invariably think about writing. After all, the blog is your personal on-line diary ready for the world to read. You try to get the writing “right” – so to speak.

But sometimes the ideas dry up. Where’s the muse you say?

Then something comes your way.

Two weeks ago, while sipping a bowl of squash soup in a small café in Stowe, Vermont - awaiting a Currier and Ives wedding on a snowy afternoon- I find myself coveting the sports section from the guy next to me, a classic grilled cheese sandwich type. The man is big and burly, wears a hunting jacket and a moose-type flap cap. He has a tiny radio thingy in his ear. Maybe he’s the fire chief?

I have to settle for the paper’s coffee-stained Section D: Living with its headline: Memory garlands and wreaths honor love ones who are absent this holiday. Now that’s an attention getter … how interesting.

Hold on! the slim column on the left hand side - which is easy to miss with the huge green and red wreath drawing in the middle of the page – is about writing.

Am I write or wrong? posits the Burlington Free Press columnist Debbie Salomon.

Ms. Salomon traces her early introduction to writing – no surprise here – through the influence of her mother, a math teacher. Her mom placed 10 new vocabulary words each week on the family fridge which caught Debbie’s eye and young mind. Debbie goes on in the column, “the mathematics of writing involve sentence structure, timing, cadence, repetition, variety and other nuances that add up to style”. Now there’s a lovely turn of words.

She adds this: “writing has assumed a new importance now that the SAT exams include an essay. Suddenly, everybody is organizing words into clear, action-packed sentences that develop a thought from beginning to middle to end.”

So I finish her article and the tasty soup and see the sports section left abandoned by the fire chief. But I’m no longer interested in last night’s basketball scores or the weekend’s football line. The muse has returned in Debbie Salomon and her thoughtful thoughts about writing.

* Am I Write or Wrong by Debbie Salomon
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/