A Writer’s Most Important Toolkit

It’s the one you probably forget about all the time

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I’ve moaned and groaned here about how I sometimes wish writers needed more gear, just because I think it would be fun to have equipment and tools and stuff related to my job. Instead, all I really need is a computer, some reporters’ notebooks, pens, and index cards (the praises of which I’ve sung here previously) and that’s about it. No fun shopping for work gear for me, I’m afraid; no cool catalogues with writer stuff to browse through.

Ah, not quite so fast. I actually forgot the most important gear that writers need: Words. I’m not being facetious. Obviously, you need words to write. What I mean is that you need to treat words like gear. You need to regularly upgrade your stash. You need to add to it all the time. You need to weed out words that you overuse or misuse. You need to swap out your cheap, easy words for higher-quality stuff.

I’m currently in the process of recording the audiobook of my upcoming release (On Animals, coming Oct. 12!!!). This means I’m reading 300 pages of my work out loud. If there were ever an opportunity to examine my word stash, this is it. I’ve noticed an over reliance on a few adjectives (“wizened” and “still” come to mind) and a few similes with a bit too much road wear on them. Aaaargh! I cringed seeing the word…