Keeping your eyes open

Writing is a way to convey emotion.

To be human is to feel emotion.  The actions done to us and the actions we do to others arrange our feelings in intricate patterns.  The voices we hear, the sights we see, the food we taste, the aromas we smell, the textures we touch all combine into this colorful painting called life.

Writing is merely the art of taking those colorful paintings and putting them into words.
As a corollary to that rule, the best authors know the most about life, about love, about hatred and strife, pink clouds and stormy nights,  forsaken churchyards and pretty damsels and ugly witches.  They know about fires and wind and voices and silences because they keep their eyes very, very open.

Sad to say, many are turned off from writing because they "don't know what to write about", and many more stunt their abilities by keeping their eyes closed.  While photographers frame gigantic, breathing pieces of life in a single snapshot, writers need to feel those gigantic, breathing pieces of life.


Keep your eyes open, fellow authors.


Snapshots of life that are blurry are impossible to write, and, thanks to modern commodities, life has been packaged and sold with fuzz and static.

   For example, how often is music merely white noise?  Too few take the time to close their eyes and enjoy solid feeling and lyrical depth, if there is any, in a piece of artwork.  Instead, we bustle around from the mall to the restaurant, talking over the radio in the background and drowning out music with...still more music.
   Another question: do you really care for people?  How will you ever get to see the nuances of individuals for writing purposes if you gruffly greet everyone with a how-do-you-do and have-a-nice-day.  If you're asking, "How are you?" merely because it's United States politeness, you're speaking a blur of life, and the legitimate response will be equally dull.
   What about food?  I'm horribly guilty here, sad to say.  My mom's an awesome chef, and whenever meal time rolls around, I just shovel everything down my gullet in less than three minutes, not even taking the time to taste what I'm swallowing.  I'm pretty sure she could feed me cardboard, and I wouldn't even notice.  The literary result?  I'm horrible at describing food...period.
   Are these direct variations?
   You tell me.
   Think about touch and sight for a moment.  Think about your toe pads.  Are they hot?  Sweaty?  Why?  Cold and numb?  Why?  Are you wearing shoes?  Why?  Are those shoes too tight or comfortable?  Without looking, think of what the nape of your neck feels like, think of if your hair is up or down, think of a part of your body that is ticklish.  Stretch your arms out and back beside you - seriously...do it - and feel your tendons straining...
   Do you know your own body?

Authors, we are sincerely out of touch with this physical world.
If you're one to live so fast that you can't even remember what earrings you're wearing, your writing will suffer, as silly as that seems.

Just sit down once in a while and listen to music without doing anything else.  I don't mean classical opera or anything; I enjoy relaxing and tensing music together, but the catch is that I "enjoy" music.  Before you eat something beautiful, observe it and fondle it and feel floury crust warm your fingertips.  Smile and genuinely care for people around you.  Observe them.  Taste food in your mouth.  Stroke your clothes as you put them on.  Keep your eyes open and absorb the small things around you that you missed.  Let shower water bounce off your palm.  Better yet, take a bath and fill the air with the scent of bath salts and inhale the thick sauna.  Melt chocolate in your mouth before swallowing.  And most important of all?  Laugh.  Laugh hard.
There's so much to experience, we can never possibly write enough books...

...but we very well can try.


Keep your eyes open, kids.


Write on!
Clove