Writing Can Be

A craft

Hard work

Humanizing

Communication

An opportunity

Its own reward

Keeping history

A language skill

Codifying knowledge

Maintaining culture

Exercise for the mind

Creating written works

Dissemination of ideas

Both an art and a craft

Painting invisible words

A cause and effect of literacy

A picture of the writer’s heart

Like building a house with words

A tool for communication in culture

Teaching, persuading and delighting

Enabling the dumb to talk to the deaf

The same process as learning and thinking

A way to find out what we know and what we think

Giving substance and colour to immaterial thought

Thinking out loud but only the paper is listening

The meeting point of experiences, language and society

An output and product of equal parts process and affection

Having something to say, and saying it as clearly as we can

Improvised additional capacity for the limitations of human memory

The art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair

The negotiating of different types of meaning realised through language

Language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols

The bending and re-bending of words and ideas until they complement one another

Jotting down ideas as they occur to us, which is simple compared to the occurring

A tool for the production, maintenance and change of social relations and of power

Symbols of words spoken which are symbols of affections or impressions of the soul

With much labour extracting precious gems from the innumerable sands of the seashore

An extremely efficient way of gaining access to that knowledge that we cannot explore directly

The product of persistence in craftsmanship honed through supported practice and human affection

Syntax, diction, thematic development, idea organization, minor and major structure, clarity, and creativity

The process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form

The means whereof we may copy out our very thoughts, utter our mind without opening our mouth, and signify our pleasure at a thousand miles distance

A medium of communication that involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols

Walking through spacious gardens and plucking the useful and the virtuous from among the worthless and fruitless plants, separating the lilies and roses from the nettles and brambles