wickedwordsmith.com

When I start a new poem or work on my novel when it comes to the words I use for my readers.  This includes a gamut of emotions from extreme highs to the lowest of lows:  tenderness, love, passion, intimacy, esteem, image, attitude, fear, spitefulness, etc.  The language I use is ninety percent spiritualistic and ten percent spice or risqué.  But just how far should I go and how many peoples’ buttons should I push to the extreme before my “work” leaves my house and ends up on my editor’s desk?  Under the societal umbrella of Freedom of Speech, it’s my right to use whatever words I want to express an opinion.  But, I’m a Christian and that comes first to me.  By Biblical standards I am to choose my words carefully “lest” I offend my neighbor.  And just how much of “my” emotions should I share?  Am I enlightening a mass of people around the world or a several few in small clumps on the globe?

This has caused me some concern as a writer.  When I was a teen, I kept my emotions in check and shared them with no one, including my Mother and Father.  I was not allowed to utter a profanity much less have one run through my mind—silently.  Once in the military, I learned very quickly every foul word and knew how to use them to have the greatest impact; but, I still kept my emotions in check and continued in that manner well into my fifties.

So, what am I like right now?  I don’t use profanity, but I do release my emotions tempered with more than a dash of patience.  My poetry—until most recently—did not contain profanity; I covered that with more outpouring of emotion and spirituality.  But again, I changed my slant when I started working on my unfinished novel which is tentatively titled, I’m STILL a Preacher’s Kid®.  I mentally posited the idea that the entire book would be of a religious nature and end each chapter with the novel’s title.

While writing the first eleven chapters that cover birth to age fifteen, I realized my life was not one continuous string of events.  There are actually three stages in my life:  the early years (no profanity, no outward display of emotion), my middle years (filled with the most profane words I could use, no outward emotion), and my current way of living (no profanity, outward display of emotional feelings).  So my trilogy is three novels.  Book two covers my profanities.  Do I tell it like it is and use profanity or save my readers possible embarrassment if “they” don’t use profanity?

My final decision was made weeks ago.  I will change my trilogy from three books to one novel that is a trilogy and make no disclaimer to any reader for what I have penned to paper.  Hey, I must be honest so people will hopefully accept the novel for what it is:  the experience of one person’s life and my final hope is that “all” the words I use in the novel will allow my readers to the realization they are not alone.  That they have gone through the same experiences I have encountered and walked through in my life.

© 2007, George E Thompson