Words, Glorious Words

There are bunches of reasons why I decided to start writing, but I today I’m going to stick with just one: WORDS. I love ‘em. 

When I hear something funny, a beautiful description, or a phrase that skillfully encapsulates a feeling, I’m smitten by both the content and by the arrangement of words themselves.

There’s so many ways to say a thing! When you’re trying to perfectly capture a specific sight, sound, or emotion, the vast options of words, and the millions of ways you can arrange them, can be exciting. It can also be a bit paralyzing at times, though.

It’s like dumping out all the pieces of a hundred different puzzles onto a table, and then trying to fit together a single matching row.

When I’m stuck and can’t for the life of me land on the right word, one of the first things I do is look over my words list. Yup, that’s right. I collect words. J  The words come from all over—people speaking IRL, T.V. shows, books—and the words I keep can stand alone or be an entire sentence. 

Of course, I don’t use other people’s constructions in my work, but sometimes I need inspiration that only a fantastic sentence can provide.

I keep a list on my phone that’s simply titled Word List. (Super Original, I know.) Here’s a few things I’ve put aside for future consideration:

Blight

Hoist

A devil’s expression

Trying out the shape of his mouth on my lips

The list goes on and on, and my friends have grown used to me saying “Ooh, that was good. It’s definitely going on the list."

So tell me, do you have any word fetishes, like maybe you sleep with a thesaurus under your pillow? Or…um, something. ;D