Learning to Become “An Artful Arranger of Words”

In the last many years I have been teaching myself how to write. Ooh! That sounds odd. Of course, I know how to move a pen or pencil across a page forming sentences and paragraphs almost as easily as I chatter and babble in longwinded sentences and paragraphs.

But knowing how to compose those sentences and paragraphs so I could become ‘an artful arranger’ of words is a different issue. This statement by Amy Tan, author and journalist, described writing in a very understandable way. My nursing career has required writing every day - but writing that only requires legibility and relatively good spelling. Short concise and to the point ~ patient progress only. To become an ‘artful arranger of words’ I would have to practice and practice. And so I have and with your help.  

My goal? To write stories, poems and to write what I believe in about my career. And to create a life outside of my day job that is pleasing to me. I have said that I should have something to do in my retirement, however it has become much more than that. My classroom has been my home and the world outside of my day job, my books from the library or store and my teachers have been in conferences, workshops and on the Net, not to mention friends and family.  A very rich ‘school’ that has only cost me time and a few dollars for pens and paper. 

Transferable skills have been a principle all along. The skills important and effective in my career and in other parts of my life, have been transferred and sometimes modified for this writing life. I have known how to connect words, to develop them into ideas. Learning to become an arranger of words, still listening and still learning the art of writing, is a joyful challenge.

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most

undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”

~ Richard P. Feynman