Hi. I’m Kim.
Huh. Maybe this isn’t as anonymous as I was led to believe?
Anyway, I’m an adjective abuser. Hell, I’m a wife-beater-wearing, descriptive word over-user. I can be a downright, hit-you-in-the-face-with-a-frying pan, shove it down your throat ’til you gag, just goes on and on so you wish I would die of old age already, sort of adjective rapist.
If wordiness were illegal, I’d probably be in a freezing cold, piss-smelling, rat-infested, black-hole of a jail cell right this minute.
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Damn it, I have a big, fat, hairy problem.
I have a big, fat, hairy problem and, no, it isn’t hipster zombie bunnies.
So, what is the second step?
I’m going to build a pyre in my backyard and burn index cards full of corpulent adjectives in effigy. I’ll watch the ash rise and float down like blackened butterfly wings and I’ll dance naked with my new freedom from padded prose.
Third step: Do a better job self-editing, dumbass.
Fourth step: I’m not sure. Maybe stop hanging out at bars Thesaurus.com?
Fifth step: How many damn steps are in this program, anyway? I’m cured already! I feel ready to leap off a proverbial writing cliff and dive into the pool of conciciosity!
Sixth step: Look up conciciosity at Dictionary.com. DO NOT click over to Thesaurus.com
Seventh step: Write the words “One Phenomenal Word is Better than Five Mediocre Words,” on a sticky note and plaster it to your writing desk right next to the note that says “Library & Laundry.”
Eighth Step: Go put the laundry in the dryer using as few words as possible. One good expletive is worth five shitty ones.
Ninth Step: Come on with the steps already! This doesn’t seem to be working at all.
Tenth Step: Go to a kids’ online study site and practice basic English skills from the seventh grade level. Do Mad Libs to re-familiarize yourself with the parts of a sentence. Preposition? What the hell is a preposition?
Eleventh Step: Give up. You suck. Go roast marshmallows on the evanescent, crimson embers of your adjective crematorium. Yum. Eating your words never tasted so good.
“Your opening shows great promise, and yet flashy
purple patches; as when describing
a sacred grove, or the altar of Diana,
or a stream meandering through fields,
or the river Rhine, or a rainbow;
but this was not the place for them. If you can realistically render
a cypress tree, would you include one when commissioned to paint
a sailor in the midst of a shipwreck?”
-Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Twelfth step: I might paint a cypress tree, Horace. I just might.
Kim Krodel 