The greatest community service writers do is write.  It is not that we have more, better, fewer, lesser thoughts than the rest of society.  It is that we take time to write them down.

In the act of writing, we find that ennui besets even the most brilliant of concepts.  We learn to make every word count because we are too lazy to write ’round and ’round before getting to the point.  Self-preservation keeps it interesting; otherwise, editing bores even ourselves.  For the reader’s sake, we sacrifice our clevernesses in favor of style, message, or count.  Fewer words written; fewer words lost.

On the other hand, writers are storytellers which should excuse them permanently from the prompt:  ”Tell us a little about yourself.”

Before learning to write “What I did on Summer Vacation”, school-children must first be able to:

• assess a group.
• enunciate the name they want to be called by that group.
• and state the one facet of their existence which pertains to that group in 25 words or less.

Writers should do it in ten.