WRITING

What is writing? Is it just the vehicle of human communication that demonstrates language with signs, shapes, and symbols? 

For some, writing is a burdensome task, grudgingly performed at the request of a teacher or supervisor. For others, writing is an easy task, willingly executed with or without instruction from anyone. Some love to read but hate to write, and some love to write but hate to read, while others love both. Writing can be freedom for one, and prison for the other. 

Litislife.com aims to help those who love to write, and encourage those who don’t. I love writing because I think it’s a cool thing to capture the voice of one’s inner thoughts. To make visible the invisible words that would otherwise remain hidden. Writing is also a way to be heard when you hate public speaking. Writing is the act and the art of forming visible letters and characters to create words. 

In turn, words create an information highway to express ideas, thoughts, opinions, and facts. The culmination of writing produces: books, poems, stories, essays, letters, music, notes, memos, notices, plays, novels, articles, booklets, leaflets, brochures, instructions, emails, blogs, statutory law, movie scripts, journals, diaries, speeches, and any other form of writing not covered in this overly exaggerated list. The point is, writing is an amazing action to take part in, and the possibilities are endless. 

One should also love the creative aspect of writing which can be described as a puzzle. It’s a puzzle because you have to place or remove words that either fit or don’t fit in the message. Writing is the colors, shapes, and pieces that bring imagination to life. 

According to Webster, there are possibly over 1 million words in the English language, while only about 470,000 entries are actually in use (Webster, M. 2022). However, no dictionary has an all-inclusive list of the real number of words people use in English. 

How so? Glad you asked. 

Not every word used in everyday life makes it to the cannon of dictionary entries. This fact doesn’t stop anyone from creating or using made up words. Slang, abbreviated, portmanteau, and jargon words are widely used by both urban and professional communities in writing. Amongst family and friends, people often code switch. This can create weird new words that may be implemented in written communication over time. 

Writing is using shapes, symbols, and letters to unlock the mysteries of spoken language. Once you develop a love for writing it’s hard to avoid it. For me, writing is one of the most therapeutic actions I engage in to keep me balanced. I think some writers write because they have a constant stream of creative ideas coming to their mind. I’ve been told it’s the same for an artist. An artist has the ability to visualize how something looks in order to draw or paint it. Writers on the other hand, have the ability to write a descriptive poem or story for the same vision. If writing is something you love to do, then do it with intentional and deliberate passion. Just write.

Help. In Merriam-Webster.com Retrieved February 5,2022 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq-how-many-english-words