The Writerman’s Creed
This is my thesaurus. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My thesaurus is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my prose.
Without me, my thesaurus is useless. Without my thesaurus, I am redundant, repetitive, and verbose. I must wield my words true. I must choose the perfect synonym before my editor slashes my copy. I will…
My thesaurus and I know that what counts in writing is not the words I use, nor the cleverness of my phrasing, nor the number of syllables in my adjectives. We know that it is precision that counts. We will be precise…
My thesaurus is battered, even as I am battered, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its pages that are stuck together with old coffee stains. I will know its dog-eared sections and its fractured spine. I will keep it close, even as I keep a browser tab open to an online version. We will become part of each other. We will…
Before all the literary gods, I swear this creed. My thesaurus and I are the defenders of clarity. We are the slayers of clichés. We are the last bastion against linguistic mediocrity.
So be it, until my deadline is met and my manuscript is complete!
Or, you know, I just use the online one because this thing is falling apart.
I too have a dog eared and well travelled word-substitutor but long ago gave in to the electronic wizardry of https://www.wordhippo.com/
When i read Gene Wolfes books of the new sun i had never reached for the dictionary more (and again on re-reading because my brain likes to blank things out over time). I swear that guy used a thesaurus to replace every 3rd word.