At any rate, the Boot represents to me an often known but sometimes ignored truth about writing.  Often we offer the same choices on our word menus but how we present them to our audience determines who stops for a while to enjoy them.

Who are we writing for? Do we often consider the audience or do we find the audience after we have written an inspired piece?  Both approaches happen in the course of writing, however we as writers need to focus on the needs of our audience. We need to spend some time getting to know our customers to understand what they truly want.  Sometimes it might require some honest conversation between two characters, simple, direct, straight to the point.  In some situations we might need to pare down our writing and offer “just the boot” to draw in the readers that truly need to hear our intended message.

Mind you this idea came to me this morning as I groggily pulled on my boots after a spring snowfall greeted me on my return to Calgary.  My little dog, Dusty didn’t know that I was still on Vancouver time; he needed to go do his morning duty.  Halfway down the driveway to retrieve the newspaper, I realized that my feet bent awkwardly as I walked.  In my rush I had put my boots on the wrong feet.  I thought about where I had been the day before, and I mulled around the idea… sometimes we need to make sure we have “just the boot” that fits.