I do it while drinking my morning coffee.

In any waiting room.

When that nagging to-do list item can probably hang tight another three minutes.

While many fritter away valuable hours diving deep into the social media rabbit hole, I’m over here gorging on word games.

Most of you won’t be surprised by my procrastination tool of choice. Obviously, Wordle, you’re cute. I wouldn’t miss a day. Quordle provides four times the fun. And Octordle! I’m both dismayed and elated to have only recently discovered an archive of eight-at-a-time puzzles yet to be solved. Be still my wordsmith heart.

Achieving genius status on The New York Times Spelling Bee is the evening ritual my husband and I didn’t know we needed.

Though my personal favorite is Blossom, a Merriam-Webster game with a similar concept to Spelling Bee: build words using one required letter (aesthetically, the flower’s pistil) and six additional letters (the petals). While Spelling Bee invites you to assemble/guess as many words as possible, Blossom challenges you to identify the 12 best letter combinations to accumulate the most points.

Instead of blurting out every possible combination that comes to mind—the easy four-letter words first—Blossom has me studying the letters, strategizing options, and definitely avoiding all the low-hanging four-, five-, or even six-letter words.

Selecting what I deem the “best” sequence of letters is curiously satisfying. Similar to the delicious reward of fashioning words, sentences, and paragraphs just so to achieve a desired effect in storytelling.

Sometimes the fast and furious, stream-of-consciousness Spelling Bee approach shines in the writing process. But the key to achieving a desired end result is that you actually need to identify the desired end result. Who is your audience? What do they need to know (not necessarily what you are most eager to say)? How do you want to make them feel? What do you want to motivate them to do? So much magic is in the pre-writing—it’s what enables you to make strategic decisions in the writing and revising stages; to distinguish between arbitrary words on a page and inspired storytelling. The puzzle of it all is such a thrill.

I mean, sure, words keep me up at night. I frequently startle awake to jot down the precise phrase I couldn’t conjure during a week’s worth of daylight. Audible sighs and self-deprecating quips may emanate from my office until I’m satisfied that a first draft could be the final.

But when the completed piece voices your intention? When the harmony and cadence of the words delight your readers’ ears? When your client says that your writing brought tears to their eyes?

The. Absolute. Best.

I know I’m not alone. I also recognize that for many, this edit-iction could not be further from your idea of an enjoyable time. That’s cool. It’s great, in fact. Because I WANT TO EDIT YOUR STUFF.

Reach out here or on LinkedIn. Gimme all the words. The emotionless bullet points. The dry statistics. The run-on sentences and circuitous paragraphs. I’ll write and edit them into strategic audience-driven communications and persuasive stories you are proud of. Right after I do today's Blossom.