Writing to Search

Those of us who clamor around among dictionaries, thesauruses, and grammar guides looking for just the right word or phrase to finish a thought may be searching for perfection in writing. We may be striving for just the right sound or meaning or nuance to deliver our message. We may be hunting for a specific syllable or word to firm up a sentence and make it stand on its own, proudly declaring its meaning. But those of us who lose ourselves in the syntax of language are also searching for something else. When we care so much about message and delivery and resonance, it's because we are searching for ourselves in the poetry of language. It's the soothing rhythm of the words we write that brings us closer to finding out who we are. Facing the blank page and working at it until it becomes something of beauty is an inner journey that we take to discover what we know and what we need yet to learn. So in the pages of dictionaries and obscure reference books, we search for the trivia of life in order to find its larger meaning. It's that simple sound or syllable that carries the beat of the larger message. As writers, we have to dig deep and bury ourselves in the detail and detritus and darkness in order to find the light. We reach the surface from the inside out, one word at a time.