Digressions

My oh my. How long it's been since I sat down and recorded my thoughts on this ole blog.

I sometimes wish I could be more devoted to it. Writing free of the newsroom restraints would do me good. The cliches of news writing, I fear, have taken a heel to my creativity, grinding it into the ground. Sometimes I write in my journal and find that the only words that pop into my head are ones more appropriate for newsprint such as beef up, rallied, threatens, purported, alleged, slain, squashed, and converged.

Not exactly riveting stuff.

But even at work, I've been trying to veer away from the convenient cliches and seek out original ways of describing the story. Instead of writing the grief-stricken father, I try to find the words he used to describe what is likely an indescribable pain.

And sometimes CBC's policies force me to seek out creative (and more accurate) descriptions. For example, we can't use the word terrorism. The reason: it's a very vague term that tells readers very little. So, for example, the so-called Toronto 18 who are suspected of plotting targets throughout the city become "bomb plot suspects" rather that terror suspects.

The same goes for the words "grotesque" and "gruesome." The copy editors often delete these terms. And so we are forced to go digging for accurate depictions.

But I digress. What I'm trying to write here is a promise (to myself) to try to write here more often. That I use this space as a place where I can fulfill my favourite motto as of late:

"The race in writing is not to the swift but to the original."
-William Zinsser