As a professional writer (my play, Mad Scientists in Love, is available on-line and at finer local collegiate bookstores) you can imagine that my talents would be of great aid to me in my interactions with the real world. While you're at it, let's make a short list of other things you can imagine:

• Angel midgets
• A million, billion, jazillion dollars
• Jerry Garcia on a pogo stick
• Cups
• Some better jokes than these

However, there are a few instances when being able to write professionally (my play, Mad Scientists in Love, is available on-line and at finer local collegiate bookstores) does "come in handy." Uninterestingly, this is simply when I'm writing non-professionally.

Still those times do bring their own laurels. For example, I was once told by a particularly concise correspondent that I can, when I apply myself, "Write frickin', awesome e-mail."

Don't believe I've truly earned of such high praise? Well, just look at this typical missive to leave my outbox:

Please remove me from your mailing list.

Now, can you honestly tell me that is not both fricking and awesome?

And so, in attempt to reach a point in an otherwise spherical piece, in the interest of better serving mankind, I feel it is only my duty as a true wordsmith (my play, Mad Scientists in Love, is available on-line and at finer local collegiate bookstores) to enlighten those less endowed verbally by, at long last, revealing my secrets and showing them how they too can write an e-mail worthy of such expletives.

To begin, we should review some common writing styles. While it's true that there are about as many different writing methods as there are writers, when we classify them anyway, most actually fall into one of these four categories:

1. Architecture - They plan. They write. They edit. They go get lunch. They get the tuna.
2. Bricklaying - They put down one line. They make it perfect. Then they put down another line. They make it perfect. Then they put down another line. They make it perfect. They cry. Then they put down another line...
3. Oil Painting - They sit down and simply create, then they go back later and put down more on top of their earlier work. Then they wish they hadn't done that and have start over again.
4. Watercoloring - Each stroke is near perfection, and they need only touch up the lightest smudges. No one can actually do this.

However, being a talented recent arrival to the field (my play, Mad Scientists in Love, is available on-line and at finer local collegiate bookstores) and one who hasn't studied under any particular school, I believe I am of a new, until now entirely unknown methodology: Chiseling.

"...the hell?" you ask? Well... perhaps an example will best explain. Here's a possible response to the common query, "How Are You?" As with any sculpture, we start with the marble, in this case, a sequence of random letters.

lksoviwbtairgbynsmdvtdilqmnvaapmrenxfikbvytadfhliyischgug
guiihndfngktiwzfdnpsaotyadjdflskmtueyihxpcwmwjblwiaitodci
iamvnmxijverdklyfbivjstmlhcidrracokmxaswenetrdkecbdliyymd

Now, in a method not dissimilar to that described by many Renaissance masters, we chip away at the material to reveal the pattern beneath:

   o    h i      m   d       a    n         d    y       
  i     n      f        a                c          t   i
     m  j         i    m    d        a   n        d   y 

Removing spaces appropriately and lightly glazing with punctuation and capital letters, we get our response:

Oh, I'm dandy. In fact, I'm Jim dandy.

True, not as effective if your name isn't Jim, but the basic approach is still sound. In fact, it has many benefits the other methods just can't provide:

1. Surprisingly little thinking involved.
2. Excess letters can be re-used later.
3. Nearly as fast as a large group of monkeys on typewriters, but without the mess.

Of course, while I've certainly been blessed with a natural talent for chiseling, (my play, Mad Scientists in Love, is available on-line and at finer local collegiate bookstores) it's only through great efforts and practice that I've developed my skill. For example, here's how my e-mail looked only a few short years ago:

himynameisjimdoyouliketeenagemutantninjaturtles?

Not long thereafter I was given more advanced tools with which to work (a keyboard with a space bar) and my writing improved immensely. I began experimenting with style:

Greetolas! I consider my name to be thus: Jim.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You like?

From there it was only a quick jaunt to forms of true artistic expression and soon I was writing essays, plays, and even poetry. Now, a published author (my play, Mad Scientists in Love is available on-line and at finer local collegiate bookstores) and award-winning playwright (my Penny Award Winning play, Mad Scientists in Love, is available on-line and at finer local collegiate bookstores) my body of work often brings to others several minutes of smirking. So, who knows...

ymwikehbaoalhnvytebhfnbwterkvcxtylaheonvxtklswqualciclac
lhrnksiwdymqolrevyniupicrventtamjuzetgftsvokdstbfvohjtfk

 m        a    y      b   e     y    o         u    c a 
   n    d   o      i         t         t  o       o            

Maybe you can do it too!

--Jim Trapp is a writer living in an area. His play, Mad Scientists in Love, is available on-line and at finer local collegiate bookstores.

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