The words I use
In the text box of Wordle.net, I posted the text of my books, Canticle of Idols (2008) and Boogeyman Dawn (2013), and one of my manuscripts, tentatively called Tango Criollo. I wanted to see all of the words I use most to avoid them. From this image, you can see that my most frequently used words are monosyllabic: tell, like, know, one, still, eyes, first, tongue. It does not seem that any go beyond two syllables: never, water, woman, children. There are some colors: black, white, red (bloody), and blue. As for trends, I see an emphasis on:
- the physical body (skin, finger, eye, body, hair, mouth, hands, breath),
- the relational (father, children),
- the search for knowledge (know, knows, remember, imagine),
- time (always, never, still, time, death, day),
- what it means to voice (tell, forget, whisper, sing),
- water (tears, sea, rain),
- the divine (God),
- and location/travel (within, without, come, gone, close, space, floor, room, fly, train, turn).
If I divorce myself of these trends to write something new, about what would I write?
It's interesting that my second book, Boogeyman Dawn (2013), and my third manuscript both explore themes of education and the protection of children and their innocence. The third manuscript attempts to explore what it means to wonder, but neither "education" or "wonder" appear as some of the most common words. Hmm. I am considering if I know what it means to wonder if I have not used the word.