Does great writing do this to you?

A late night Twitter gush from yours truly…

I’m struggling to articulate what I’m feeling tonight. I feel like I’m drunk. Do you ever feel that way about great writing?

I haven’t even read anything life-changing. I mean, it’s the introduction to “The Best American Sports Writing 2013” by J.R. Moehringer. I doubt he intended it to be the pinnacle of his writing career.

But I don’t know. I honestly started to skip it. I mean, why read the introduction, right? \”Eh, do it anyway,\” I thought. \”Give the guy a shot.\” Or maybe it was just the OCD in me that says, “Have you REALLY read the entire book if you haven’t read the intro?”

But I was drawn in with a story, excited by the rhythm and the choice of the words, enchanted by the ideas. Good writing…it just leads you…like a lover that gently takes your hand and walks you into a pecan grove.

I don’t know why I’m waxing poetic about an introduction. I guess I just realize how fragile and special a thing it is to write well. It’s a talent — scratch that. It’s a hard-won CRAFT that doesn’t get the respect it deserves.

And in this age of snippets and sound bites and content vomit — when even the leader of the world can barely string sentences together — good writing is just RAPTURE.

Maybe that’s what I’m feeling. Rapture. When you see the craft of something and you acknowledge it and you truly BEHOLD it and it makes you want to run grab your notebook and do the same thing.

Or, in this case, take to Twitter and gush the praises of @JRMoehringer a writer you never read before tonight (but I have a copy of “Open” that I will certainly read soon) in an anthology you picked up for 50 cents at Goodwill.

Just the joy of this book — this FIND — this little treasure randomly plucked from a shelf in Statesboro, Georgia, of all places, and the joy of the words and the thoughtfulness behind them…I know! I sound drunk!

But it’s like that sometimes when I read. And I guess I wish everyone could experience that with me. Because language is powerful. It can change you. It can make you laugh or make you see yourself differently. It can alter history.

And isn’t that just the coolest?!

Don’t mind me. Now that everyone is staring I’ll just go back to reading my book.