Write Well

Write Well

"Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well."

-- John Sheffield                              

         Grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary are the life tools of the educated man regardless his endeavor. Writing is a universal skill, not just the paintbrush of authors, poets, and journalists. Doing it well sets you apart.
         Like all skills, the craft must be mastered through practice and exercise. More than anything else, our modern technology destroys our ability to write. It is easier to thumb press an emoji than construct a complete sentence expressing our ideas and feelings. We thumb-press our skills out of existence. What a terrible thought.
         Writing well is not just the art of pen on paper. Its purpose is to inform and persuade others about what is in our mind. It begins with refining and organizing our thoughts. Both writing and speaking start with a well-organized argument. When I retired from the Air Force and interviewed for my next career, I had to show something I had written and give a fifteen-minute talk on a subject of my choice. Their logic was simple and valid: "Our employees are intelligent, educated people working on complex mathematical and scientific problems; so is our customer. You may spend months buried in the math and physics of your work, but at the end, you must provide the results in English to a critical customer, convincing him that your answer is right and his money was well spent." I always took that as a worthy challenge.
         Occasionally life will present a requirement or an opportunity for writing something meaningful. Those occasions are not the practice field for developing your writing skill. Ripen the talent using routine everyday aspects of living to be available when needed. Keeping a journal sharpens your ability with the craft. Think of it as the Captain's Log in Star Trek. Daily entries are not practical, but pausing often to record your observations on the world around you and your life in it has several benefits; improving your writing is one.
         Soon you will be away from home and setting up your own life. The pace will change once you leave the chaos of the family household. Keeping in touch by letter, worthy in itself, is an excellent way to practice your writing skills.
         Parents, brothers, friends, and soon a special woman will want to share your life in more depth than can be expressed in a text with an emoji. Shortly your brothers, one at a time, will follow you out into the world. As life scatters you to different places and careers, letters offer a way to stay close to those you care about with something tangible that can be kept and reread in quiet moments for years to come. You are the oldest and the first; you must start and sustain it. If you do, they will follow.
         I relish writing, especially when my tool is the fountain pen. Even if I am just writing a grocery list, watching the ink flow onto the paper makes me feel like I am writing the Declaration of Independence.
         As you can tell, I enjoy handwriting letters. I think about all the great thoughts that have been transmitted through letters. I ponder the letters now in museums, encased under glass; letters from soldiers in battle; love letters across the miles to their wives from men living the great events of their time; letters between scientists exchanging thoughts on a discovery. I wish I had made this a regular part of my life much earlier.
         Some letters have made history and changed the course of human behavior, like Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." I marvel when I recall that letters written by a guy named Paul make up a large part of the New Testament and still reach us today. I'm sure he never thought about where they would wind up when he was writing them.
         So, maybe my letters to you might provoke a little more than a smiley face on a text message. I urge you to seize every opportunity to write and constantly work to make everything you write something to be proud of.

“Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.”

-- Lord Byron                        

The series:
         "Read Voraciously" 
         "Listen Intently" 
         "Write Well"
         "Speak Well - Public Speaking" 
         "Speak Well - Conversation" 
         "Love Mathematics" 

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