Wednesday's Writing on Writing

I was raised by a crossword-puzzling, poetic father and an anagramming, word-loving, Latin-knowing, grammarian mother. My two older brothers are smart and were good students, so I learned to speak and write correctly by osmosis, which frustrated my English teachers to no end. I could pick out the correct sentence, but I couldn't say why it was better than the poor example – it just sounded right. The right one sounded the way my mother spoke.

I learned to read before kindergarten, and in those days learning to read wasn't supposed to happen until the first grade. I'd have gone stir crazy waiting that long, so I read to my kindergarten colleagues and got a reputation for being smart.

From early reading came a love for newspapers and magazines—something fresh and new to read every day! And from all that reading, I think, came an ear or an eye for good writing. I was great in arithmetic until it became math, and I was good in science until it became biology and chemistry. But give me a writing assignment, and I was in heaven. That I could do. The fact that most kids loved all that other stuff but dreaded writing made me unique.

Writers must love words. That's a prerequisite. I especially love anagrams, interesting turns of phrase, mistakes, typographical errors, unintentionally funny signs (Discount Foods & Salvage), and the like.

I drive family and friends crazy when I see an interesting word and notice it's an anagram for else (an anagram is a word formed from the same letters as another word). For instance, I'll drive past a car and call out, "an anagram for Pontiac!) A lover of words will soon come up with caption. Or we'll pull into a hotel and I'll say, "Anagram for Hampton." Phantom.

I also love beautiful writing. Writers are readers. Good writers are good readers. Great writers are great readers. If you don't like to read, you may want to consider another profession.