# The Uncanny Wordsmith

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124/the-uncanny-wordsmith
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124/the-uncanny-wordsmith.md
Podcast: [Don't You Dare To Think Out Loud!](https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124)
Published: 2025-12-29T15:00:49+00:00
Episode link: https://javiertruben.substack.com/p/the-uncanny-wordsmith
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/182863322/05bf1bc90136ef0896ee59b04d99fa10.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124/episodes/the-uncanny-wordsmith
Duration seconds: 223

## Resource

I was a boy wonder, and I loved to hate the guts of whoever was a killjoy. And mostly, any authority figures who were poorly paid teachers, so I was bound to be self-taught. However, I had a professor who taught me to channel all that hate by reading aloud about any historical character of my choosing. Soon, I also became a performer aboard the school bus, which had loudspeakers and a microphone; I learned to read a comma and a semicolon and pause after a period without missing a beat. The bus driver cut a deal with me. I could read if I indulged him in reading his favorite book. The Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz. Time after, when I began to write, all those bloody caesuras made a lot of sense. Slow reading made me pore over sentences unfolding every aspect of language; all those sensuous qualities–how many syllables a word had and how long the accent over a vowel–are likely to carry weight, give pleasure, and hold meaning. These poetic qualities are tied up as the purely cognitive. And if I think about them as a mode of communication only, those qualities would not be alive and kicking. That must explain why I feel myself accessing skills I have learned through decades-long narrator performances. I’ll read aloud and look up for the through line. At this stage, all the worms will come out of the can: tiny dialogues, unconvincing characters, sludgy descriptions, totally random, unrelated bits of crap, and b******t that have made it through what I hoped would be an astonishing copy. I have done enough awful rehearsals–I know this for real. But the pain in writing, as you know, it’s a discarding process as well. And I don’t have any partner to reassure me I will make it. Outside the box, I find myself ‘watching’ the story like an audience. Am I bored? Restless? Irri…

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## Transcript

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