Writing is kinda fun cuz it's like you get to be the judge of a popularity contest.

At least when you regularly write articles 800 words over the limit. When the assignment is for an 800-word article.

But see? It's kinda fun! Of you 1,600 words, only 800 will make the cut! Only 800 of you will have the subtle grace, pizzazz and charisma to out-compete fully half of the words written here today! I am the Ryan Seacrest, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell of wordsmithery, all rolled into one!! I should start some sort of tribal council.

But that would be pathetic and lame. And I never do pathetic and lame things. Like keep a blank piece of paper as a bookmark so I can write down words I don't know, in the original sentence, so I can look them up later.

Ok fine, I do. But otherwise how would I continue to dazzle you with my verbal prowess? And one of these days, thanks to all my hard work and dedication, I'm going to be able to bust out 'turophile.' That's right. Turophile. I can't wait. I don't know when or where or how, but nothing beats the supreme satisfaction of using a word that is so arcane that 99 percent of people have no f*cking clue what it means. If you have the patience, the situation will arise. Why, just recently I was able to place 'eponymous.' And while it may be slightly more common than I would like, I still get a little thrill thinking that people will read an article I wrote that contains the word 'eponymous.' Hopefully some of them won't know what it is. Others will have a vague idea. All will appreciate my literary genius and indisputable destiny for stardom.

I also used the word puerile in an article once. Now that was a good one.

I wish I could say that it's all about pushing myself to improve my mastery of the English language, to understand its nuances and forgotten archaisms in order to be able to describe the world with ever greater precision. But it's not all about that. Part of it is about being acknowledged, too. It's about somebody reading my article, writing it down on a piece of scratch paper kept just for that purpose, and then looking it up, and waiting for just the right moment to use it.

Yeah, right. Like anybody else does that. I'll settle for them just wishing I didn't use such overblown words.

But mostly it's about finding the perfect context for turophile. I can't wait to put it in some ironic description, a profile maybe, or even a food-related piece. Who knows when it will come in handy?! Reading, for me, is like rummaging through a dusty attic of oddly shaped items of indeterminate utility that you know are going to be just the right tool for the job, one of these days.

And because reading about my attitude towards words probably bores the living sh*t out of you, I'm going to leave you with a quote about writing that is far wiser than any I could dream up:

"People always ask me, 'When are you gonna write another movie?' Well, shit, as soon as I quit being lazy. 'Cause if I have time off, I don't spend my time writing. It's not like you're taking a vacation if you sit down and write a screenplay. People always say 'In your downtime, why don't you write a screenplay?' Well, then, it wouldn't be downtime, would it?"

Amen, Billy Bob.