On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
Author Liz Michalski shared the following thought-provoking advice in a recent post on the Writer Unboxed blog:
As writers, we spend so much time in our heads, creating imaginary worlds and populating them with imaginary people, that sometimes we can miss the world we are a part of. Walking, we can be so immersed in telling ourselves the story we’re trying to write that we miss what the clouds are writing in the sky over our head. Driving, we hammer out plot holes and fail to see the scenery arcing past our windows. And it’s not just writing that carries us away. Worry and impatience for things to ‘begin’ (or for tea to boil) keep us from living – and noticing – what is happening now. The world becomes background noise to what is in our head.
But I’d argue that being aware of the details of life as we live them is important for us both as people, which of course is what matters the most, but also as writers. It’s these details, captured, that help us immerse readers in our stories, that bind them to us with that best magic – truth in our fiction. To capture the whispering sound of snow on the wind, the sharp green scent of pine needles crushed underfoot, the heavy, warm weight of a sleeping toddler in our arms, to trap them on the page and make them come alive, it helps if we have captured them in our memories first. And that can only happen if we allow ourselves to be aware of them as they happen.
So my challenge today to you, my dear friends, is to take a moment to settle into this complex world we live in, to slow down and look at it with open eyes, as if for the first time. What are you seeing or hearing or tasting or touching that on another day you might not have noticed?
Joanne Guidoccio 