I’ve been asked to write an article for the school paper on what will probably be a front-page issue. Combined with the police logs and a burning desire to write a letter to the editor, I’ve realized something.

I hate writing introductions. Here, I can just start in with terrible openers like “So…” But “So, like, some girl got meningitis” would probably not fly as an opening line in our paper. So right now my introduction is, “Great, gripping introduction goes here,” with a big highlight in Word to remind me to not submit it that way. The vague alliteration with g‘s was to amuse me as I wrote it.

What I really enjoy doing is writing phrases. This isn’t to suggest that I can’t turn phrases into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into a full… things. I can. But for the letter to the editor, something I have no obligation to write (and something that they may well choose not to run anyway), I’m free to work as I please.

So I have some things scrawled down: “foisting their preferences” and “a smug sense of self-entitlement,” for example. They reflect the wonder that is finding the perfect word to get something across. I could have said “forcing their preferences,” and probably would have if I wasn’t allowed to randomly scribble down phrases I liked. Similarly, I’d probably have said, “arrogant” if this was an article I had to rush and couldn’t take creative liberties with. But it’s a letter to the editor that I can submit whenever I please. And besides, “arrogant” sets off bells as being an ‘attack word.’ Calling it “a smug sense of self-entitlement” flies just below the radar, introducing an edge of snippiness without being as overtly offensive at “arrogant.”

And here I am, writing about how I should be writing something else…