As a writer you are an artist. The page is the canvas and the paint are the words. Use words to paint a picture, creating a movie in the theater of the mind's eye. - Michael Knost.
I know I've hit on this subject before in my Good Description series, but this topic deserves repeating because of the important and necessary role that words play in writing. This is one of the areas in my writing that I have been focusing on this year. I have found that actively being conscious of the words I chose makes a BIG difference in the way a story sounds and how successful I am at conveying the story message to the reader.