Good writers use words the way painters use paints and brushes. A little here, a dab there. Soon a beautiful landscape is formed, and the doing of it seems incomprehensible. How do artists--and writers--create such things, from start to finish?

I write, but I still hesitate to say I am a writer. There's a difference. Writers have a knack, a skill. It's 90% hard work, going over and over a passage, tweaking it until a picture is created. But still, there is that special something. Some writers have more of it than others; I hope to hone my two bits' worth till my stories are at least readable.

Some of it comes down to a single word. Is that smell pungent? Savory? Acrid? Or earthy? There are authors whose word choices entrance and draw you in. Poetic prose, opening up an alternative reality. Do you have a favorite author whose skill keeps you coming back?