So I think as a result from reading too much high fantasy (which tend to use slightly archaic words) and from being too obsessed with using big words, I have a tendency to use words in my writing that ... well, they're not mis-used, but I'm using a less well-known definition of the word where, because of the MORE well-known definition, it just confuses people.
For example, my beta thought (and probably still thinks) that when I say "I started awake from a nightmare" I meant to stay "I startled awake from a nightmare" or "I started to wake from a nightmare" where in fact I really mean "start" but the definition that means "to involuntarily jerk/jump". And I kept it "started awake" even though probably every other person to read that story ever is going to think it's a typo when it's not. It's just me being pretentious.
Another example, I recently realized in my story that I needed to change my use of the word "intelligence." My sentence "We will simply have to rely on their intelligence" uses the word "intelligence" in the espionage-related meaning but I realized that the automatic assumption would be of "intelligence" in the smartness-related meaning, and so I had to change it and I was sad.
I guess what I'm saying is, I wish people could read my story, and just know what I meant to say. But of course, the whole point of writing and reading, is so that if I'm really good at writing, they'll know what I meant to say and find it interesting, so they're only confused if I'm bad at writing.
