Concise.

I love writing… well, sometimes. When the ideas are popping and the words are flowing, it’s just so satisfying.

That clearly doesn’t happen all that often.

At times, I’ve been told I’m good at it… but let’s be real. If I were really any good at it, I would be Pioneer Woman, or at least her best friend – WHICH HAS BEEN ON MY BUCKET LIST FOR YEARS, REE – and yet after these 14-ish years of writing this blog she still doesn’t even know who I am.

It breaks my heart.

Dear Ree. Whyyyy haven’t you invited me to come stay at your lodge?! After all these years?! It hurts me so, Ree…

I can ramble. I can start out talking about trombones and segue into lug nuts and that may be why this blog has never truly taken off. I mean, who can keep up with all that, and why would they want to? I love to hear my own self talk…

… but nobody else really wants to.

What I am trying to learn how to do is to tell a story concisely. The best writers do. It’s a skill, you know, to be able to tell the story in as few words as possible, and let your reader’s imagination fill in the rest.

The best preachers tell the story in as few words as possible.

This quote from Stephen King always sticks in my head…

When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story… When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story…

I’m working on it.

As I was reading my Bible this morning, I read this one sentence…

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to by which we must be saved.

Acts 4:12

…and I thought, BOOM, that’s it, the whole story.

Paul’s central message, summed up in a sentence, like Stephen King says… he told the story, did not mince words.

Boom.

What an excellent piece of writing, there.

He told you ALL you need to know, and NOTHING ELSE.

Did you see how I did that? I started out talking about writing, segued into my Ree Drummond obsession, ended at Paul’s gospel message.

Clearly, I have a lot more to learn about writing.

Unlike Paul.

Or Stephen King.

Or Ree Drummond.

I’ll stop there.