The difficulty in literature is not to write, but to write what you mean.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Scottish essayist, author and poet (1850-1894)

Every author who has set pen to paper or keyboard to blank screen feels the anguish of communicating with words that which is in their mind. To be misunderstood is a painful arrow through the heart. Everyone who is literate may assay to put their thoughts and feelings to paper. Not every attempt at setting forth one’s innermost cerebrations, (a ten dollar word) will meet with success. Often, we know, the selection of just the right word makes the difference between having the reader intuit our meaning or have the effort miss the mark.

To that end may I make a suggestion? Writer’s Digest Magazine recommended a website called MasterWriter 2.0. It not only provides an instant thesaurus (that’s how I found ‘cerebration’), and dictionary, but various writing hints, some of which are: suggested projects, word families, phrases, parts of speech, rhymes and pop culture. Of course, we have Roget’s Thesaurus right to hand, and some of us may use The Synonym Finder, by J.I. Rodale, a somewhat more complete listing of word alternatives. However, once MasterWriter is downloaded to your computer it is available at the click of the mouse while your writing is in progress. One needn’t stop to open a book and leaf through pages.

One caution, MasterWriter does require an expenditure of money, but can be accessed initially for a thirty day trial period. Stuck for an idea? Looking for the correct concept to freshen your story? Not sure of the meaning or correct spelling of a word? A search in one of these categories could jump start a story gone flat or which you have written into a corner. Finding just the word we are looking for may enable us to do the most difficult: say what we mean.