Regaining your voice when words fail you

Each week, Evan Peterson rounds up stories from across the Web that scribes of all stripes should check out.

If you have nothing to say, at least be creative in how you express that. This is one of jobs of a writer, according to one journalist. Also, what is it like to be plagiarized, and should writers embrace technology?

Describing the indescribable: “I can’t even” is something people say when words escape them. It might be due to a lack of vocabulary, or the result of genuine shock.

In texting, Twitter, or conversation, there may not be time to think of something better. But the phrase itself isn’t the problem. It’s that “I can’t even” is the only one we use to express the same idea. (“I can’t even” is a 21^st-century phenomenon as t he Google N-Gram shows ).

Writing that words escape you or that you can’t describe something isn’t bad, and it’s not admitting defeat, but there exists endless flexibility in how you express this.