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How the Writer’s 5 Senses Can Inspire Creativity

2010-02-06T12:16:41Z

I’ve been reading a lot about how writers can find their muse and strike that perfect alignment with their creativity — it’s got me thinking …

What if it’s not all that complicated?

I wanted to take a detour around the confusing charts and breakdowns and approach the matter as a person with five basic things in common with you — because I think these five things might be they keys a lot of writers will find useful.

These, of course, are the five basic senses — and just as they will help store and recall memory, they can also be used to inspire your own creativity.

So, the question stands — how can a writer’s senses inspire creativity?

Sight

As one of the primary and most powerful forms of observation, sight is the most common sense utilized by writers around the world.

Though some writers are talented beyond the rest and actually write without the use of sight, the majority of us will depend on it to inform us of the world in which live, the people we meet, and often trigger the feelings we feel.

One exercise I think a lot of writers, including myself, will benefit from is approaching sight from the position of someone who writes without it — in other words, try not to take it for granted. Look around your world, watch people, and soak up the visual of life — what do they tell you?

Try looking at old photographs of people — it’s strange how much they look exactly like the people we know today … only dressed in funky clothing.

Watch a film. Study a painting. Look up … what do you see?

It’s important to keep your eyes open as you live — you’ll see things most people in the world don’t know exist, regardless if you’re in a huge city or rural hamlet. Write it down to study later.

The trick here is to think about everything you see.

Sound

Again, hearing the world certainly isn’t essential to a writer, but it’s another powerful sense to have at your disposal — so much in fact, it often becomes the primary sense for the blind.

Most of us will often find inspiration by listening to music of some genre or another — it could be a cinematic score, something from a nostalgic era, or a personal favorite. Music affects artists because musicians pour their own inspiration and creativity into their work and strive to share a feeling with the listener — if they’ve done a good job, the listener will feel something emotional.

And while most writers will utilize music for inspiration, it’s definitely not the only source of inspiration.

Hearing another language can also inspire a writer tremendously. The sounds of a city or a village will spark the creativity for some. Certain sounds might spark something as well, such as a gunshot, an animals cry, or a spaceship.

Just as you keep your eyes open, it’s important to keep your ears open. Think about what you’re hearing and wonder what the source of the sound wanted you to feel when they made it.

Taste

For me personally, I find food from other cultures extremely inspirational. Food will often reveal a lot about the culture, the restaurant, or the person cooking it.

I recently traveled to Mexico for the weekend and experienced authentic Mexican food for the first time — it was amazing! Adding spices instead of salt, enjoying real sugar cane instead of fructose corn syrup, and using fresh ingredients … it was just a taste of what the culture preferred, which to me revealed a priority for fresh foods.

Though I had acquired a pretty good feel for what Mexican food was all about here in Los Angeles, it was inspiring to be able to enjoy it while visiting its place of birth.

In essence, taste can spark your creativity like no other sense — it can spring you from culture to culture and even inspire a feeling … for example, when I go for sushi and miso, I’m often struck with inspiration due to the feeling of being in the world of Blade Runner — this might seem strange to you, but that’s because everyone has their own memories and feelings tied with certain tastes.

Touch

Whether you’re shaking someone’s hand or petting a tiger shark, touch can be an incredible source of inspiration.

A lot of people attribute this sense to the majority of their experiences in life, because for most, physical feeling sticks around longer. Swimming in the waves at the beach, dancing until you’re completely exhausted, or enjoying a massage are all examples of feelings through touch.

Feeling something you’ve never felt before might be a very inspiring moment in your life — for example, if you were to experience a powerful earthquake for the first time, chances are you’d come out of the experience with a little more respect for mother nature.

Try to experience life to the fullest — go skydiving, ride a roller coaster, fly somewhere, or try rock-climbing. Any and all physical experiences might spark that inspiration needed to get creative.

Think about how you feel when you’re experiencing it — what does it tell you about life?

Smell

Like taste, this sense isn’t really a primary source of observation, but can be utilized by writers to enhance an experience.

I’m not sure about you, but I’ve found that certain smells, such as pyrotechnics smoke and air conditioning in the theatre strike my creativity — probably because I associate it with plays I’ve experienced.

The key here is to keep an open mind toward your senses and think about what you’re smelling. Smelling the salt in the air at the beach might spark a world of story, you never know.

What Senses inspire your creativity most?

Just as there is a vast range of how to go about writing a story, there is an equally vast range of ways to yield your inspiration and turn it into creativity.

What sense do you find inspires your creativity most?

Writing your Book on the iPad

2010-02-01T06:20:04Z

With the introduction of Apple’s iPad last week, I can’t help but wonder how thewriting community will be affected — not so much in terms of whether or not writers will use the iPad to write their work (there’s no question there considering we so openly use laptops), but rather in terms of a new store Apple has built for the iPad …

iBookstore

It reflects the look and feel of iTunes and the App Store and replicates their ease of use, which for readers, makes the iPad the best e-reader available. With the major publishers onboard with the iBookstore, readers will not only be able to purchase, download, and read their favorite titles in an instant, they’ll also be able to read titles made available by smaller publishers (much like the app developer community — sounds like a perfect opportunity to get involved with the digital platform for independent and self-publishing companies out there.

So with the iBookstore coming shortly,what is the iPad and how will writers be able to use it?

iPad

As a device that fills the gap between your computer and your smart phone, the iPad

will act as your mobile computer — smaller than your laptop, yet more powerful than your smart phone.

Apple also introduced a suite of apps along with the device, called iWorks — including spreadsheets, keynote presentations, and what writers will find most useful, the word processing app called pages.

Apps

The App Store currently features over 140,000 apps — both for sale and for free, from professionals and from amateurs … you’ll even find a few writing related apps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

With the success of the app store and the innovation and creativity of the developers creating apps for the platform, there’s no doubt there will be writing related apps available for the larger platform, the iPad.

The question stands — what might those apps include?

I’d love to hear what you think about all this — the iPad, using the full size touch keyboard, adjusting to the platform, and writing while on the go.

Do you see yourself writing your book on the iPad? Publishing your work to the iBookstore through a self-publisher, or do you see yourself continuing to pursue traditional publishing?

Are You Living to Write or Writing to Live?

2010-01-28T01:00:17Z

I was hanging out over at FUEL your writing, which is an exceptional blog, when I was suddenly hit with a question I thought every writer should ask themselves.

Susan stressed the importance of physically exercising in order to stimulate the body and mind — I agreed (check out our short conversation). If you’re not physically moving around and getting the blood flowing, you’re mind isn’t going to be as sharp as can be.

Are you living to write, or writing to live?

In other words, are you living your life and subsequently using your experiences as inspiration to write, or do you experience life through your writing — through characters, situations, and themes you might not have been able to experience in reality?

This question is important because it will reveal your approach not only to writing, but to life as well. If you’re like me, you probably feel pull in both directions — you want to experience life for what it is as well as what it’s not.

Where does everyone stand in their own writing?

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on this question, what approach you take with your writing, and whether or not you feel this is affected by the genre in which you usually write.

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Try Writing a Little Each Day

2010-01-28T01:00:35Z

If you’re anything like me, then you probably feel like you should be writing pagesupon pages every time you sit down to write — writing a lot makes you feel more like an actual writer, right?

Sure, it might feel that way, but that point of view is more harmful than helpful. When setting yourself up to meet such high expectations (a number of pages that you probably can’t even articulate … you just know it’s a stack of papers neatly stacked on one side of your desk), you’re setting yourself up for you know what.

Let’s face it — how many of us actually write pages upon pages every time we sit down?

One. Two. Maybe a handful of others. The point is, the majority of writers can’t even meet their own standards.

If you can’t seem to knock out twenty pages at a time, try writing a little each day instead.

This might be exactly what you need as a parent, professional, or student — all of who have very busy schedules.

A little at a time will go a long way.

Approaching your story, novel, or other literary work with the plan to write a little at a time might just be what you need to conquer that writer’s block you’re enabling.

Has this approach worked for you? If not, what are your own methods and how have they helped you achieve your goals with writing?

DEADCOLOR: Yellow

2010-01-26T00:35:39Z

Ever since Decimation Day, nuclear smoke had charred the skies black. The world was cast into a perpetual darkness, and it wasn’t long before people lost track of the time. The survivors reset the clocks the best they could, but you simply couldn’t see through the clouds of smoke. It was four in the morning here, but for all I knew, the sun could have been shining bright in the sky.

It was my dad that taught me to paint; it was right here on the balcony actually. Though I’d been around his artistic creation my whole life, I became interested in painting only after he told me about the time he saw the sunrise. He said it was the most beautiful yellow he’d seen. I wanted more than anything to see it, so I stayed up every night … I still do.

Though civilization reset their clocks the best they could, the clear definition of day and night slipped from our knowing and Los Angeles became a place where people lived at their own pace and on their own schedule … a city that never slept. There was another city like that once, but it was one of the first to go in the war. People say it was hit so hard, and from every direction, that it was reduced to scolding ruble within seconds, and that it was completely swept off the map and into the Atlantic when the tsunamis hit the North-East shore. They say the steel wreckage from the super-high rise buildings alone destroyed surrounding cities.

Decimation Day happened sometime in 2012. It was the first and last nuclear world war the planet would experience, and it all lasted just under three minutes. Some would say that Nostradamus was right, others believe the Mayan’s called it in their calendar, but the fact is, they were wrong. Sure, the world pretty much came to an end as everyone knew it, but there was something the soothsayers didn’t foresee … survivors. Of the billions of casualties, time seemed to be one in particular that affected the planet for centuries to come.

It was like a never-ending foggy night. The only light you could really see in the sky was the light from the neon metropolis below.

Rain fell from the dark, blanketing clouds as I sat at my canvas. I’d been working on this particular piece for the past few months. I thought about it night and day. I dreamt about it every time my eyelids shut.

The canvas was still blank though.

I had ideas. They ran through my mind with the force of ten tsunamis, but ideas combined with talent proved to be dangerous in this world, and like many artists, I inherited my parents’ talent. This is why my ideas were dangerous. Though, it was also because they weren’t necessarily ideas of art at all … pretty much the opposite actually.

My parents were murdered. I saw who killed them; it was a friend that did it. There had always been rumors behind the deaths of represented artists in this city; most consisted of strange disappearances, sudden deaths from disease, or the most popular of all, Cloud Lung – a cancerous disease triggered by breathing too much of the unseen radioactive waste in the clouds. Though this was claimed to be the number one cause of death in the city, it was widely believed by the underground that the agencies were more dangerous than the clouds. The agencies, also known as bloodhounds, were the ones behind every sale, every promotion, and every professional artist in the city.

Start Writing 1000 Words a Day

2010-01-26T00:30:17Z

Writing the next great novel is an extraordinary goal to work toward – books and their authors have brought the world insight, knowledge, illumination, imagination, and much more for thousands of years. The only thing stopping most people from pursuing it is that it requires them to write.

To be a professional writer, one must put in the time and effort to learning their craft. Just as any other aspiring professional, whether a baseball player, an artist, or a doctor, the aspiring writer needs to dedicate their time and mind to their work if they hope to reach their goals.

While athletes train, artists study, and doctors test, there’s one thing that connects them all, and it’s the key to becoming a professional in any field …

Practice.

For the writer, practice consists of both reading and writing. Both are very important to the aspiring writer, for they both play a part in the development of the writer. Setting out to write without reading would be similar to making movies but not watching them, producing wine but not drinking it, or designing cars but not driving them.

Reading

Stephen King is known to read anywhere possible, including waiting rooms, market lines, and the loo – any place where you can fit in a page or two will suffice if you’re able to enjoy a story without having to sit down for hours at a time.

As a runner in Los Angeles, I took King’s advice and started reading in the gridlock traffic on Sunset Boulevard – my reading list had shrunk considerably before I knew it.

The easiest way a writer can start practicing their craft is to simply start reading. Read everything possible. Whether you create a list of what you want to read, follow a book club, or read as you discover compelling stories, you’ll be practicing part of your craft by experiencing your medium from the reader’s perspective. This will help you understand what type of fiction or non-fiction you enjoy most, what you’re drawn to within the story, what works, what doesn’t, and what you’d like to say with your own writing. The more you read, the more you learn.

Read every day where ever possible. If you’re pressed with a busy schedule, consider taking King’s advice and start reading when ever you have a spare moment – the doctor’s office, the market, the loo, or even the car. Audio books are great for readers period, but they’re a great solution for the commuting reader pressed for time.

Writing

On to the harder part – writing. To the writer, writing is what it’s all about. It’s about creating your own stories and using your own unique voice to contribute to the world of fiction, and hopefully entertain the readers of the world. Again, while this is an admirable goal, it’s often easier said (or blogged about) that done.

There’s only one way to become a professional writer: you need to write. There’s no college, certificate program, seminar, guru, or any other force can change that. Again, like the athlete, artist, or doctor, a writer needs to apply their mind and effort to what they want to do … that means writing. While colleges, seminars, books, and the like can help writers better understand aspects of the craft, there’s only one piece of advice that sum up what a writer needs to do to become a professional writer:

Write 1,000 words a day

Whether you’re a novelist, screenwriter, poet, or short fiction writer, you need to put in the practice that your craft requires. Setting a goal to write 1,000 words in your desired medium is like dedicating an hour, two, or three – however long it may take you to write those 1,000 words – of your day to your sport, art, or medical studies, which is exactly what athletes, artists, and doctors do to practice.

Like most everything else, writing isn’t something that happens overnight – if it does, it’s usually an overnight success five, ten, twenty years in the making.

Apply yourself to your craft and you will develop as a writer and position yourself as a professional. Work toward you goals and you’ll find yourself getting closer and closer every 1,000 words.

Create structure & schedule

It’s easy for writers to skip practice and go without writing for days, weeks, months, or even years on end due to the lack of structure or schedule, so it’s crucial for you to set your goal and stick to it. Create your own structure, create your own schedule, and get to work.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to create structure and schedule for your writing, consider subscribing to ScribblePlay.com for the latest writing tips and content. Subscribers receive the latest content via email, which, as a writer’s resource, can become a healthy reminder to keep practicing your craft.

DEADCOLOR: Blue

2010-01-26T22:05:46Z

The nights seemed to grow longer and longer with each shift I worked. I was an LAPD officer straight out of the academy. The name’s Regen Macintosh. I graduated with honors in all categories, aced my tests, and I was buddies with all my instructors … yet there I was, sitting in a parked Vista bored out of my mind. My training officer, Philly wasn’t much help – the guy popped sleeping pills every night before we even left the station garage. I was tired of it already. I hadn’t been out of the academy two weeks, and I already started questioning whether or not I was right in the mind joining the LAPD.

The filth of the city gets to you fast. There’re things that happen in the middle of the night that no one should see – or even know about for that matter. Last night I spent twenty minutes in the pouring rain with a guy who had been stabbed in the gut. I could hear the medivista’s siren just a few blocks away when the guys gut split open from the pressure, spilling all thirty feet of his small intestines into the gutter, which the rain then swept into a storm drain. Luckily for him, the intestines were still attached to his body, so I was able to retrieve them from the drain. I remember feeling extremely numb while carefully fishing out the never-ending entrails. Then, a jolt of energy that could power a vista for a month shot through my chest – there was a dark figure climbing up toward me from the bottom of the drain. I tore away as fast as I could and returned to the injured man. I felt bad for him. It’s not every day that a stranger piles your own intestines on your chest, and tells you it’s going to be okay.

The rain was hypnotizing as it trickled down the glass of my squad vista, blurring the lights of the neon city. It blanketed the interior from the outside with its smoky, blue tint – the dirty rain was just one of the remnants from Decimation Day. I kept the smoke-shield wipers going so I, too, didn’t doze off; I heard stories in the academy about officers who fell asleep on duty and never woke up … the people in this city are animals. It truly is every man for himself in today’s world.

The computer suddenly came alive with bright LCD light and the radio blarred a long, loud BEEEEEP. I started the vista and prepared to slam it into gear if we were called. Philly was sound asleep. I waited as the radio fell silent for a moment – it was this moment that everyone held their breath … unlike a regular 507 or 415, the long beep was the dispatcher’s way of calling everyone’s attention … it was this moment that decided your fate for the night. The system was a bit out of date … definitely an oldie but goodie. The new police vistas did away with the old CAD system, replacing it with what was called the AID One, or Artificial Intelligence Dispatch. And then it began.

“Alameda to 23, 24, 25, bravo 20 and K9-2, signal 10-71 and 0 in progress at the WorldTime Tower,” Eloise, the dispatcher, called. One nice thing about getting called was Eloise’s voice; it wasn’t like the homeless bag lady’s hoarse voice or the high-pitched hooker’s voices on Sunset Boulevard, it was normal. It wasn’t like the AID One or A.I. around the city, there was emotion, a sense of humor, honesty, and empathy.

I didn’t bother waking Philly … figured the ride there would toss him around a bit.
“10-4 Alameda, 23I slammed the stick into first, hit the siren, and the vista lifted off the slippery street – emergency vehicles were capable of hovering seven feet above surface streets, allowing us to navigate safely through traffic. I spun the wheel, slammed the throttle, and sped over the street toward the WorldTime Tower looming over the horizon of buildings.

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Jasper Nickels and the Secret Guild of Glowbugs

2010-01-26T01:10:20Z

To most people, Silver Bear Village was a place of tranquil enchantment. It was a place where wondrous winters came every year, and where you measure the snow by the foot, not the inch. To most people, it was a place where you could loose track of time, forget the problems in your life, and enjoy the beautiful scenery. But to Jasper Nickels, a boy of ten years of age, Silver Bear Village was far from enchanted or wondrous. In fact, to Jasper it was the most boring place on Earth. Jasper had lived with his grandparents in the little cottage on Kettle Pot Place ever since he could remember, but what he couldn’t remember was the last time anything exciting happened in the little village. Like the occasional avalanches that shook the town from Crescent Peaks, the neighboring mountain range that could be seen from the town square, everything seemed to be off in the distance. But all that changed for Jasper while at school one crisp, sunny day.

Blue Jay Elementary was host to grades kindergarten through eighth, and held after-school activities for the residents, including Bingo, woodworking, and town meetings. The old school bell rang, and the doors burst open to let out a flood of children. Jasper quickly broke away from the crowd heading toward the playground and made his way around the far corner of the brick building. He was in such a hurry that he slammed smack into Merckle Clay, an eight grader who dwarfed Jasper in size.
“Watch it Nickels!” He shouted as his two friends, Horace and Lionel, loomed from behind him.
“Sorry,” he said, “sorry.”
“So, do you have it our not, shrimp?”
“Yeah,” Jasper replied as he tugged at his backpack.
He dug through the depths of his pack, rummaging past a sack of marbles, a yo-yo, some pogs, and an old granola bar, until finally retrieving a twenty-dollar bill and a loose marble.
“Let’s see it first.” Jasper said.
“Well, well, well,” said Merckle, “Hand it over guys.”
Horace reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and produces a slingshot with discretion. Jasper’s eyes light up. Horace hands it over, and Jasper eyes the old craftsmanship of the handle, the new rubber band, and worn patch of leather connecting the two rubber bands.
“That’s twenty big one’s shrimp.” Merckle demanded.
“Sure,” Jasper said, and tossed the twenty over.
Merckle glanced back at Horace and Lionel with a gross smirk across his face.
“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Jasper,” he said while still grinning, “but I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask for that back now. Isn’t that right b–,” he trailed off as he watched Horace and Lionel’s grins dropped as their eyebrows lift.
“What’s the matter with you two?” he asked as he turned back to realize he was staring through the slingshot’s wooden arms, directly in target of Jasper’s marble, which he had placed in the leather patch and stretched back over his shoulder.
“You were saying?” jasper said.

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DEADCOLOR: Red

2010-01-26T22:05:55Z

My hair whipped through the cold, coastal air as I sped South from the bay in some poor Joe’s vintage Shelby GT. The immense fire in the rear view mirror blazed like no other – flames rose higher than the tallest peak of what was left of the Golden Gate bridge. Though it was long before my time that the bridge was actually considered Golden in all of its red glory – it had fallen into disrepair after Decimation and became quite the antithesis of its name – the flames sparked an irony … that only during its destruction does it resemble anything close to what it used to be.

The destruction of the legendary Golden Gate Bridge would trigger another panic. Authorities were already investigating the scene. People were already recording the chaos and spinning their own take on what happened. There was one thing they all shared in common – they didn’t know who was behind it. They had ideas … but the mystery older built momentum – momentum as powerful as a vintage Shelby GT.

While they watched the towering flames consume the oh-so legendary bridge, they failed to look up … look around as a mysterious figure passed by, snagging a set of keys on the way, and head away from the scene. That’s what’s wrong with people these dark days – they’re all rubber neckers with out the slightest idea of what ‘s really going on at any given moment.

Not me. My eyes are wide open. I am alive and I realize that when the time comes I won’t be aware that I’m already dead.

I couldn’t help but glance back at the glowing bridge with a smirk.

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Writing in First Person vs. Writing in Third Person

2010-01-28T01:00:44Z

After becoming interested in writing short fiction thanks to Stephen King’s exceptional book, On Writing, I found myself at a bit of a crossroad. I faced the question all new writers eventually face when they attempt to place pen to paper: Should I write in first person or third person?

If you’ve looked into the matter, you’ve probably read a few strong pieces of advice stating to write in first person when first starting out, as it’s believed to be easier. As a writer that started out jotting down quick short stories in first person, I can’t help but agree … perhaps because it’s easier to imagine a story from your point of view rather than a God like narrator’s.

Question of ease aside, I’d like to explore the choice of writing in first or third person itself, and furthermore, the best way to make a decision for your story.

First of all, let’s look at the differences:

First Person

This perspective of storytelling consists of I, me, my, we, our, and so on. Because we speak in first person most of the time, the perspective is considered casual or informal to the literary world

Third Person

This perspective on the other hand consists of he, she, his, hers, their, they, etc. Unlike first person, this form isn’t usually used in everyday speak — unless you’re that weirdo referring to themselves in third person, — therefore it’s considered formal to the literary world.

While it might be true that a disturbing percentage of educated, professional people can’t write, I recently read an article (Wired maybe?) that covered an experiment conducted to measure the effects the web had on the writing of present day; presuming it was about to reveal that we were all monkeys on keyboards, I read on. To my surprise, the article revealed that the experiment had recorded an unprecedented amount of writing going on in present day thanks to the social web. As you may or may not know, the web has become a very social place with sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and blogging platforms.

The point is this: There is a lot of writing going on, and 99% of it is probably in first person.

This said, it all comes down to the story at hand. If you’re writing a story about someone experiencing something others might not get a chance to experience, whether a good thing or bad, you should consider using first person. First person will provide a sense of immediacy and authenticity that third person might not do such a good job with. For example, a story about an assistant working their way through the movie business in Los Angeles might be pretty interesting to experience from first person. On the flip side, a story about a cop in the bad part of town might also be effective as a story told in first person. Both examples would work for the same reason — the reader will experience the story from a close vantage point. If either story were told in third, they might be exciting and entertaining all the same, but those feelings created from first person would be missed.

How to decide between first or third person perspective

Now comes time to make a decision! You’ve got a great idea for a story, you’re excited by the character, you’re connected with the theme, yet you’re still not sure which perspective would work best.

Again, consider the relationship between story and reader when deciding which perspective to write. Will the reader benefit from experiencing the story in first person? If not, maybe it’s time to give third person a whirl? If you’re not quite comfortable enough to write in third person, consider writing in first.

It all comes down to two things:

1. The story – every decision made should serve the story

2. Comfort – you should be comfortable with the perspective you choose.

Whether you decide first person or third person perspective for your story is ultimately up to you — there are no rules or formula to follow, you simply need the passion to tell your story, a comfort zone you’re aware of, and a sense of what form will serve your story and reader best.

For more about writing short stories, check out Stephen King’s book, On Writing — it’s one of those books that you’ll wish you would have found it earlier.

If there’s anything true about writers, it’s most likely that they usually compile a vast collection of books in very little time — so what books have you found helpful with your own writing?

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