It is very hard work to make writing appear so simple. Thousands of columns and still is difficult. If I have any tip to the three winners of the Gaskin Essay Contest, whose excerpts we printed last week, it would be to write simply. Reread your work and remove the big, gas-guzzling SUV words and replace them with Escort words. Stay with one or two syllables.
Every great writer uses small words.
The genius is in how you string them together and in the ideas they carry. The memory of odors is very rich. The apple, plum and pear trees in our big yard and along our garden fence looked like small white rustling clouds hovering near the green April earth. The sun was high in the afternoon sky and birds sang as they flew back and forth to their nests in the blooming trees. The April earth was in a rejoicing mood.