Fighting words

One of my favourite moments when I write is when I have to stop and search for the perfect word. This morning I was sitting at my desk, everything going well, and then a word stopped me. I looked out the window at the rose about to bloom on the arbour, sun splashing the grass, someone out for a morning run. The word that had come to mind wasn't quite the right one. In the scene, my character has the urge to punch someone. But punch isn't right. I sifted through the possibilities: smack, slug, wallop. None of those are right. It's 1968 and my character is a young man, not quite a hippie, but inclined that way.

I reached for my thesaurus, a weighty 1300 plus pages that has that rich well-used book smell when I crack it open.. And that's it. That's the moment I love: the pleasure of weighing the options. I leaf through the pages to find "punch." It leads me past n. alcoholic drink to v. hit. Some of the words I consider: smite (okay, not seriously); coldcock (maybe; first I have to look it up and confirm that it means what I think it does, which is to knock unconscious in a single blow, and it does); clobber (too comic book); pound; hammer; pummel (all possibilities); paste (maybe; it's a term we used in the 70s); crack; belt. I reflect that pound, hammer and pummel all suggest repetitive hitting which isn't what my character has in mind. I go back to coldcock. It seems too calculated. It's more what someone would say after someone else had done it. Eventually, I find the word I need. That's good. But it's the looking for it that I really love.