EVERY OPEN EYE

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EVERY OPEN EYE DOES NOT SEE ...

EVERY CLOSED EYE DOES NOT SLEEP

- Bill Cosby

Do you see the world around you? Does what you see impact your writing?

FIVE STEPS TO LIFT THE BLINDERS FROM YOUR WRITING EYES:

1.) ASK WHAT MAKES YOU AFRAID:

The answers to that will tell you who you are, what areas in which you need to grow. The answers will give you a renewed sense of why your characters seem alive or just cardboard.

What makes your soul sing? Ask why? Think how your novel would be fun for others to read.

And if it isn't, why would a reader bother with your novel at all?

2.) KEEP AN EYE PEELED FOR WAYS TO GROW:

Weight resistance builds muscle mass.  Thinking outside the box stimulates the brain to grow. 

When presented with a question for you to do something, and you give a knee-jerk NO.  Consider saying YES.  Or at least ponder why the quick refusal.

Reflect on what makes you afraid.  Would learning more about the subject change your writing? 

Fear snakes? 

Ask a snake owner if you could touch and handle hers or his.  The whole gauntlet of sensations and emotions that triggers will deepen your prose.

3.) STOP SNORKELING THROUGH THE SEA OF LIFE:

Knock on doors physical and emotional that say STAY OUT. 

Ask a policeman who's standing in line with you at the bank

why he joined the force or what things about daily life as a police officer make him smile ... or bother him.

Wander into a newspaper staff room and ask the most junior staff member what drew him or her into this life. 

 Go to an ambulance center with a puppy dog look on your face and ask to talk to any EMT that is not busy. 

Do the same for your local fire station.  Firemen endure long hours of boredom at times.

Say you are writing a novel from a fireman's wife point of view.  Ask if he can share any pointers.  If there are women fire fighters talk to them about their jobs and concerns.

4.) CHALLENGE YOUR MIND:

Take a self-defense class.  Learn how to dance.  Take a few lessons in judo. 

Challenge both your mind and body to act in ways unfamilar.

Take evening college classes on anything that interests you or daunts you.  You will find experiences and sensations that will enrich your writing.

Feeling adventurous after those self-defense classes?

Bring an escort of several friends (and maybe pepper spray, too) to a strip club and watch the faces of the men,

of the dancers,

of the bartenders tending the drinks. 

5.) MIND YOUR SURROUNDINGS:

Like coffee?  Go to STARBUCKS or BOOKSAMILLION and listen to the people at the tables around you. 

Study their conversations, their gestures, the interplay between speakers.

Standing in line for a movie? 

Watch how a single woman gets out of the car, how a married woman does the same thing. 

See if you can tell without looking at rings who is married and who is dating.  Ask yourself if a couple has become intimate yet.  And give reasons why you say YES or NO.

William Faulkner once wrote,

“A writer needs three things:

experience,
observation
and imagination.

Any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.”

I feel that it was no accident that experience is first on his list.

Can you think of other ways to "open" your writer's eyes?
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{Eyes of Rose Red courtesy of the fabled Leonora Roy}
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And for the laughs:


AND FOR ALEX: