I love words.  I love the shape of them, the feel of them, the sight of them.  I love hearing them in different accents and different languages.  In my real life, I’m a speech language pathologist.  I work with adults who have had their words taken away from them by strokes and tumors and brain injuries.  My mother asked me once if my job made me sad because I worked with people who were suffering and I told her that it’s hard to describe the joy of hearing an adult speak their first words again.  When I write, I love to play with words and see how they change the meaning of what I’m trying to convey.  Two nights ago, I wrote an entire scene in my new book using phrases like “His lips curved into a smile” and “His eyes lit with amusement.”  As I was documenting therapy sessions at work, it hit me (yes, I think about writing while I’m working) that I was writing that scene all wrong.  I came home and changed the phrases to “His mouth thinned in anger” and “His eyes darkened.”  Maybe I’m a word-nerd but it thrills me that you have the ability to change the whole tone, the whole direction of a scene by exchanging one word for another.  Words are simple yet powerful, there are an infinite supply of them, and they are free for the taking.  Is there anything better in this whole world?