Finding just the right words

Writing is a lot like sculpting. You start out with a large block of clay (your subject matter.)
Then you mold it and shape it and give it the form you want, often eliminating much of the substance you began with (editing.)
It can be laborious. Mount Rushmore took more than a decade to complete. It may not take us years to complete what we are writing, but at times it will seem like we are trying to build Mount Rushmore!
How long do you suppose it took the sculptor to make sure Thomas Jefferson's nose on Mount Rushmore was the just the way he wanted it?
We should pay such attention to our words and sentences. I read a passage recently describing the way a defendant was dressed in court, quite differently from the way he was dressed when he was arrested. The author said the defendant was wearing a neatly-pressed suit with a white handkerchief peeking out of his suitcoat pocket. I tip my hat to the author. Peeking was not only a great word in that context; it was the right one.
I often tell people I can recite the best sentence I ever wrote - and I wrote it 25 years ago. I had been hired by a daycare center to write a script for a video it was producing. The video was 5-minutes long and was to be used to entice parents to choose this daycare center over others they might visit. My challenge was to convey to parents the significance of their decision.
I wrote, "If there's anything more important than the time you spend with your children, it's the time you don't...."
After all these years, I still love that sentence.