She’ll use it against me.

– c.

Not only do I try to weed out my darlings, I get the help of my wife in doing it. She’s never afraid to tell me something sounds stupid or that I’m overusing a word. I don’t even argue with her about it anymore, because she’s right 90% of the time.

My freshman English class at Blinn College focused upon rhetoric. This also included spotting logical fallacies and writing informative and persuasive papers. My instructor was a former journalist, so her insights were great. She was a strong advocate for assertive language (as opposed to the mushy and wobbly words), and helped us figure out how to integrate that into our writing. Mentally, I translated it into, “Write like you know *exactly* what you’re talking about: you’re the expert.” In other words, be that cocksure son-of-a-bitch who you want to dislike, but can’t because you know he’s right.

– c.

I’m also a slut for introductory clauses. You know, the bits that go in front of a sentence? Seeking foresight and context, they clutter the shit out of whatever comes next. Those worthless hangers-on, glomming themselves onto phrases in the name of artistry and prose? Hanging on by a comma, they sweep themselves along on the coattails of …

Excuse me.

BLAM BLAM BLAM.

Just get to the damn point. I have to tell myself this a WHOLE LOT.

In senior year of high school, I developed debilitating headaches. Long story short, after months of agony, a chiropractor looked at the x-rays he’d taken (which went from knee to head) and asked if I’d been to see a dentist about my headaches, because he believed he spotted impacted upper wisdom teeth up against my sinuses.

Mom made the appt. with the dentist to have full x-rays taken. We got to the office, and they said they’d switched my appt. to be with their TMJ specialist, because they believed my headaches were due to TMJ. After several minutes of arguing with them, my mother, who at the time I’d NEVER heard utter a swear word, said, “Take the goddamn x-rays!”

There was a moment of silence, they took the x-rays, I had surgery to remove two fully-formed wisdom teeth from up against my sinuses, and my headaches went away.

A lot of these are certainly more “bad habit” than “darlings” — darlings being a thing that stands proudly like a preening peacock — but all told it’s good to be aware of our limitations whatever we name them.

– c.