Sometimes a writer can spend so much time looking for what to write about, they forget to actually look at what is going on around them. There are battles, love stories, deaths, births, commitments, going on in the world, between people, creatures, in Nature, in your yard, where you work, where you play, everywhere.
If you write romance, for instance, have you ever caught a shy glance shared between work colleagues? That man serving at your usual cafe, does he always have a particular smile for one particular regular customer? These simple things can bring interest to your writing, real things happening in places you know so well, you can write about them so the reader can almost hear the phones ring in the office, or smell the coffee at the cafe.
When you bring such things into your writing, you will be able to easily use the five senses, because you know what these things look like, sound like, smell like, taste like, and feel like, because they are a part of your life. The things you do almost every day, or especially every day, will become second nature to you, and you will be able to bring everything into how they fit into your writing, because the things are normal, natural, and also special, to you.
The way your front door key sticks if you are in a bad mood, so that getting inside after a bad day at work, making your mood even worse, or the way the same door can open with a fairy soft key twist after a great day at work, where you were praised for a job well done. These things can add much. So can the wind as it blows through the trees, sounding like perhaps the sea, or the way next door’s chickens sometimes sound so proud of themselves, it sounds like they’ve produce a dozen golden eggs, not just one ordinary brown or white one.
Everything that happens can, with adjustments, go into your current writing. Or if it is interesting, but doesn’t seem to fit with your current work in progress, write it into a for such things. Sometimes when you have a moment later on, with the same work or a different one, your note may be just the perfect thing to show something, something true, and perfect.
Real life brings reality to your fiction writing, to your poetry, and even to non fiction writing. Even unicorns can get nervous when a thunderstorm hits, flinching at crashing thunder, flashes of lightning, wildly thrown head with rapidly twitching ears, damp skin, shivering, cowering, trying to hiding away somewhere small and safe.
Write what you know, with the exciting addition of what you imagine, as well!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 