Shields book won the Orange Prize in 1998 and the book is dense with words, words about words, one of the most dense that I've ever read. I love her writing.
With the fear of being locked up, words are always bouncing about in my head and I edit. I see a colour and rather than think violet, I think lilac, mauve, purple, aubergine. The flowers in the field in Andorra that we stopped to look at were dancing, twirling, doing yoga, fighting to stay upright. I imagine sentences, paragraphs as I walk down the street. One of my frustrations in speaking French, I'm happy to find a word, any word, not one that has exactly the right weight and texture.
I prefer to think that I'm a writer rather than insane.
One of the things I adore in my housemate is we will talk about words we love such as peckish as just one example. One of us will exclaim from time to time, "Oh, that's another word I love." The other person will say, "Oh yes, I like that too."
And being married to another writer is his appreciation of good writing. As we dive into individual books we appreciate when one interrupts the other to read something the other found well-done.
Sometimes when talking my speech will be slowed as different words flow through my brain much like subtitles in a foreign film until one stops to finish the thought.
Words, words and more words...I love you all.
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