My Scribble Book

My Scribble Book

         Ideas do not spill from my brain (or yours), complete in content and perfect in form, ready for the world to see. They come in fits and starts, shards of intellect and emotion, like lumps of clay needing the potter's hand to shape them into a work of utility or art for display and consumption. They come in bits and pieces, not a glorious epiphany revealing some great truth. They are incomplete.

         Yet what leaves my pen must be complete and as perfect as I can make it, for everything I produce carries my name, explicit or implied. I am judged by my work. Whether I wish it so or not, my work says who I am, to friend and foe alike.

         My workplace is my Scribble Book. There I record thoughts as they occur; mold them into a usable form, adding and subtracting to make whole the idea I wish to convey; ordering them into a logical, convincing argument; trimming out useless words, injecting words and phrases to add clarification. Only then do I viciously apply the rules of grammar and punctuation to ensure I am not mistaken for a fool. At last, a complete draft, written continuously from beginning to end without interruption. The final test is to read it out loud, letting my tongue ferret out mistakes that my eyes passed over, and expose awkward or clumsy wording that will break the reader's cadence.

         Then to pen and paper or keyboard to produce for display the product I wish the world to see; something to convey information, provoke a question, evoke an emotion, or cause an action. From my mind to yours by way of my Scribble Book.

         Everyone should have a Scribble Book.

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Word Count: 288