Just a thought – about words, ideas and pegs

“All words are pegs to hang ideas on.”~ Henry Ward Beecher

Words.

Words are the tools of trade for the writer. There are so many words and so many ways to combine them. Everyone can put a few words together; sometimes they even make sense. (Have you ever received those spam emails made up of words at random? Why do people bother?)

The skill in making sense with words is how you combine them, throwing them together until they make some kind of sense. That makes a sentence. A few sentences glued together make a paragraph. Several paragraphs strung together can make an article, or a story or a letter. Put together enough and you might make a book.

Ideas.

We all have ideas. When we take those ideas and write about them, others can understand what we are thinking. Those ideas can amuse, entertain, horrify, persuade, encourage, offend or inspire us. But ideas without words to hang them on are just that: ideas. They remain within us, unexpressed, untouched and unloved.

Ideas are everywhere, in the simple, common, everyday things of life. Hang those ideas on the pegs called words and everyone can see your ideas hanging out there in the sunshine.

That is why I am a writer.