Wordlovers

I love words. I love the infinite nuances that can describe an action by varying paper-thin degrees. I love the fact that a person can walk across a room, but that same person can also amble, meander, stride, toddle, creep, trot, charge, weave, mosey, gallop, sneak, stalk, lunge, scramble, tip-toe, leap and stroll.

I love the sound of words. I love complex sounds, complex rhythms. I love the staccato sound of serendipity. I love alliteration and patterns and feminine rhyme. One of my favorite poems is The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe:

Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

I love the fact that words can paint a picture in our minds, can evoke emotion from our hearts, can take us to any place we can imagine. They can inspire, instruct, hide or reveal, tempt or satiate. There are truly no limits to what words can do. And all we have to do is string them together.

I am constantly writing. I can't not write. If I am not working on a new book, I'm writing letters or writing in my journal. If I'm not doing any of those things, I'm writing in my mind--revising dialog, reworking descriptions, narrating. I narrate throughout the day, imagining how I might describe an event, something I see, a feeling I have. I don't know if all writers do this, but it's a constant activity for me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

I really do love words.