I-know-I’m-cheating
My-word-count-says-that-I-wrote-one-word-in-that-first-line
ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha (<—-that’s-me-laughing-maniacally-because-I-figured-out-a-way-to-cheat-this-stupid-self
-imposed-23-word-limit)
But-who-am-I-really-cheating?
It’s-not-like-I’m-cheating-on-my-taxes-or-something
By-not-strictly-adhering-to-a-challenging-word-count-I’m-not-hurting-anybody
Except-maybe-myself
When-I-coached-swimming-I-used-to-have-the-tattletale-swimmers-come-tell-on-the-swimmers-who-didn’t-complete-the-full-set
“COACH!”-they-would-say-“SHE-ONLY-DID-EIGHT-FIFTIES-INSTEAD-OF-THE-TEN-FIFTIES-YOU-WROTE-ON-THE-BOARD”
And-I-would-reply-“She’s-only-cheating-herself”
Which-is-exactly-what-I’m-doing-here
And-here’s-the-really-sad-truth
It’s-almost-as-hard-or-maybe-even-harder-to-write-this-way
And-it-can’t-be-very-easy-on-you-my-dear-readers
Mentally-removing-six-gazillion-hyphens-just-to-get-the-sense-of-this
Or-maybe-you-get-used-to-it-after-a-while
My-advice-to-you-is-this:
Don’t-cheat
Don’t-overuse-hyphenated-words
Anddon’tdobigrunonwordseither
Love-your-reader-as-my-writing-instructor-used-to-say-and-make-your-writing-easy-and-enjoyable-to-read