Sunday, Sept. 9, 2012

One thing writers need to be successful at their trade is input.  What kind of input?  Any and all.  We need to be stimulated—our minds, emotions, bodies and even our souls.  Without such stimulants, we lose our creative edge. 

Think of it this way.  When a person cooks, they can add all the ingredients they want, but unless they include seasonings, the dish will fall flat.  Not that the finished product wouldn’t be edible.  It most likely would be.  But spices enhance dishes just as stimuli enhances a writer’s ability to take life’s seemingly ordinary occurrences and translate them into entertainment that will capture a reader’s attention…make them laugh…cry...worry…look under the bed, etc.

So where do writer’s get their inspirational input?  Simple.  From everyday life—lots and lots of everyday life!  I believe that we writers take a closer look at things that others might pass over, thinking them insignificant.  And to most, they would be trivial.  But to a writer, those obscure trivialities are a treasure cove of hidden seasonings that, with a little writing skill, can manifest what might have been perceived as a boring occurrence into something that, though it may still be boring, the way it’s presented to the reader is anything but.

So we writers get out and do…things.  We live life fully.  We take as many opportunities as possible to eek every last nuance out of life, allowing those subtleties to infuse themselves into our minds, emotions, bodies and even our souls, for we know that to absorb the most out of life will allow us to become better writers, more capable of capturing a reader’s full attention rather than just their occasional glance our way.