Writers write words but what happens when those words don’t come out? Or the word they’re searching for is on the tip of their tongue but they just can’t spit it out?
Not, not dementia but it could be aging. I do find more of these words missing as I write. Sometimes I can think of a similar word and pulling that up in the thesaurus can bring the right word to mind. But sometimes the word I want isn’t at all related to the word that’s stuck in my head. So I keep saying the wrong word over and over – out loud. For some reason, if I picture the scene/items in the sentence I can sometimes come up with the missing word.
Needless to say, this can be frustrating. I try to write without editing and stopping to find THAT ONE WORD can slow things down. So I’m trying to use a place holder, something like [WORD MISSING] as I already do with [CHARACTER NAME] or [WHAT VEHICLE] or [CITY/TOWN] or even just [***NOTE]. The brackets make it easy for me to search later and fill in the appropriate missing item.
Do you ever have this problem? How to you handle it? Does it happen in conversation, writing or both? Love to hear your thoughts…
Thank you.
It happens to me in conversations. I think it’s a side effect of some of my medications so I just try to roll with it rather than stress myself out about it.
I’ve got 20 years on you so I suspect it more aging. LOL!
It happens to me all the time. It’s so frustrating but I’ve tried to create some workarounds (including looking helplessly at my husband, begging for help). Then other times, the words just flow. Oh well.
Yup, if hubby is around, I toss words at him in hopes he will find the one I’m missing. LOL!
A spouse sharing in the finding of the word is a great technique!! It isn’t dementia if we eventually find the word, while remember that we’re looking for it. It’s dementia when we can’t find it and we forgot we were even looking for it. 😉 Word searching is great exercise for the brain too. I love your idea of brackets to remind you, that’s very clever of you! Happy writing – thanks for sharing the tips!
It happens to me on names of people and things. Family doesn’t wait while I concentrate, but blurt it out for me. I have some short term memory loss secondary to some of the meds I am on. I tried cutting them in half, but other things happened so I had to go back on them. It is really very frustrating for me. If I was much older.. at least 15 years, I could be less frustrated. But I just turned 65 in December and I would like to not realize in 15 yrs or so, I might not have a memory.