What’s in a Jot?

“Take this down, Smee.” – Captain Hook.

Jots are snippets of writing. They can be long or short, finished or unfinished, spontaneous or planned.

When you keep replaying a painful conversation in your head, jot it down.

When you’re scarred by the image of a subway pigeon pecking at a chicken bone, go ahead and jot that down, too.

When your Great Aunt Lena regales you with tales of how tough it was working on a farm in Italy as a young girl — well, you get the idea.

Just get it down.

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The Jot is my process. It’s about letting my work be in progress so long as I’m doing the work.

It’s also about focus. So while I’m practicing wordplay and storytelling, I’ll also be feeding my brain with content that keeps my writing muscle lean, and sharing that here, too.

Naturally, you can expect some muddled, ugly paragraphs and more than a few botched “jots.” But hopefully, somewhere in there, you’ll also find a word or two that resonates — something that makes you stroke your beard or your double chin and say, “Huh.”

Welcome to The Jot.