The Joy of Writing
On a personal level, part of the joy of writing is discovering that my mental dictionary contains words that I didn’t even know were in there. I regularly find proof that my mind has two dictionaries (at least); My conversational dictionary that probably contains maybe 5,000 words for everyday conversational use (I haven’t checked for research on this) and my ‘writing’ dictionary which possibly holds three or four times that number of words (or more).
For example, in writing a chapter of my latest novel, my brain suddenly provided me with the word soupçon. Obviously I heard or read this word sometime in the past and my brain has decided subconsciously to stow this word away for potential use. It’s not a common word and definitely not a word that I could imagine myself using in general conversation, but my mind presented it to me at just the right time.
When this happens, I consult the dictionary (with my perceived definition at hand) and 99 times out of 100 I am pleased to find that the word is absolutely perfect for what I want to say.
The human brain is indeed a remarkable piece of organic computer engineering!