Inspirational Quote of the Week
The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
Mark Twain
There’s been plenty of lightning and thunder the past few weeks around here.
It’s been bright and loud and unexpected and wild and relentless. I am not afraid of the lightning and thunder at all. Mom says I am afraid of so many things, I don’t have room in my brain to be afraid of storms. Actually, I kind of like these crazy storms, because they make Mom stay home with me.
I also kind of like lightning bugs.
Whenever Mom takes me out at night, I see those blinky things flying all over the place. She won’t let me chase them, though. She says, “Don’t pull me!” and “Heel!!” and “That’s enough craziness for one day. It’s time for bed.” I haven’t caught a lightning bug yet. But when I do, I’m pretty sure it’ll taste like lemon candy.
Mom is not nuts about storms or bugs, but she is nuts about words. They are her favorite things in the world (besides me).
She writes words and counts words and reads the words out loud to herself. Then she deletes them and changes them and takes some out and puts some new ones in. She is ALWAYS looking for the right word.
Mom says adverbs are poison. I am not allowed to eat poison. I tried it once and it wasn’t fun.
Mom uses SmartEdit to find the poison adverbs and get rid of them and then she searches in the Thesaurus to replace them with a perfect verb that does the same job only better. “Walked quickly, looked carefully, and laughed loudly” are OUT. “Raced, inspected, and roared” are IN.
Maybe tonight, “Heel” will be OUT and “Gulp. Slurp. Yum- Lemon” will be IN.
