Here is another guest post for you. This time from the interesting writer that is Ashley McCook. If you wish to peruse more of her words see her website and blog, linked below. As always all comments are welcomed. To Ashley, I humbly thank you for your lovely words…

I Love Words…
I love how they taste just before you say them, how some of them have to roll around your mouth for a while before they can be uttered (try saying ‘Stromboli’ ) and how others just explode off the landing pad of your tongue, excited to be leaving your thoughts and heading out into the world (like ‘jet’ or ‘fish’).
I love coming across words that I’ve never heard before – sometimes just hearing them is enough to satisfy my appetite but more often than not I need to get the full effect of them and look up the meaning too. My most recent discoveries are:
‘Dendrophobia’ – a fear of trees. Eeek!
‘Nycthemeron’ – which is the natural amount of time in a day & a night; 24 hours basically.
Will I be able to use them in a sentence anytime soon? Probably not, but I like knowing that I know them…if you know what I mean.

There are some words that you can’t help but ‘feel’ as you say them – try saying ‘soothing’ without feeling calmed; or what about ‘irritable’? You can’t say it without frowning a little. And the best ‘feeling’ word? In my humble opinion it’s ‘whisper’ – the very air around you changes as you say it, it’s hard to say it loudly and you can’t help but glance over your shoulder and pull friends into a confidential huddle as it leaves your mouth.
Words are beautiful to say and hear but they really come into their own when they’re written down – the simple act of marking a page with them is exciting and addicting. Words in all their forms have a certain effectiveness but they are at the height of their Jedi abilities when written down; think about all the important documents out there – contracts, laws, declarations, certificates, receipts – why do we write the words that make them down instead of just saying them to one another? Because writing those words onto paper that can be shown to others makes something ‘real’ and powerful.
I’m not a very ‘scholarly’ writer – by that I mean that I don’t use a lot of those beautiful but complicated words that I love knowing. I’m certainly not as clever with the use of words and language as I’d like to be and I probably use each and every forbidden type of grammar and style known to man (and warned of in lots of ‘How To Be A Proper Writer’ blogs all over the Web) but when I saw the first print copy of my first book, felt the solidity of it and the excitement of each little letter printed on its pages, straining to be read…well, I fell in love with words all over again.

Ashley’s websites:
Ashley McCook
Ashley McCook’s Space

© 2012 Simon Poore