Anonymous asked: Your use of language is an intimate delight to read. Do the words flow, or do you reach for them? Do you use a thesaurus? Do you get distracted by a word that's the wrong word and then you're swimming, searching for the right word, but it's sunk down under the silt and sand at the bottom? Thank you for giving me réchauffé.

The search for the right word seems to have me in constant agony. I’ve lost days waiting for the right one to appear. To obviate that problem I keep an ever expanding list of words that I don’t know the meaning of or am fascinated by. I have a thesaurus always available to me, but only use it really when a word I know is evading my grasp. I find it pretty destructive to one’s writing to purposefully go looking for synonyms. 

But yes, I frequently find them lost under the silt and sand, as you say. Right now, for instance, and perhaps someone can help me with it: Meticulous or assiduous, of the kind suggesting the work of a gem cutter/gems. I even know how a few of the syllables of this word sound, but can’t find it anywhere.