A carpenter has wood. An artist has paint. All a writer has is words – and you’ll need as many of them as possible!

Buy a small notebook. No, not that size, smaller, just big enough to fit in your pocket. Whenever you stumble across a word you’ve never seen before; a word that you simply love; or a word you know but never remember to include in your stories, jot it down in your word notebook. 

Don’t look up the word then and there, as you’ll interrupt the flow of your reading.  Come back to the word later. 

Try to keep your word book with you whenever you read or write.

(c) Nick Hitchen 2007

Last updated on August 10, 2007