Writing Secrets: See the world differently this year
This new year, make the decision to see the world differently – through a story-teller’s eyes.
If you can do this, then every day, every trip to the supermarket, can feed your writing. You’re never really resting. You’re observing, collating, picking up material.
See yourself as a character and your life as a series of journeys. When you tell stories at the dinner table, tell them as a series of scenes, with dialogue. Collect anecdotes and scenes, scraps of dialogue and even phrases from the people around you. Scribble them down in your notebook.
Everything becomes grist to the mill eventually, and if you can see life through a story-teller’s eyes, every experience can become a good story.
Writers draw from life all the time. This is not to say they write autobiography. But they pinch aspects of their own and other people’s lives and use them in entirely different ways, for different purposes.
So, as a writer, you’re never not writing. You’re watching, collecting, practising. It’s just a matter of the way you see life: not as a string of discrete events, but as a series of stories, which build and grow.
Happy new year. I hope it’s the best it can possibly be for you and your family.
Read Richard’s latest blog: ‘Monday Motivation: Doubt is a writer’s best friend‘
Upcoming course:
Cape Town Creative Writing Course: Starts 3 February
Johannesburg Creative Writing Course: Starts 3 February
Online Creative Writing Course: Starts 3 February
