I’ve found myself relying more and more on my experiences as I’ve been writing this semester. It’s weird for me, since I tend to write less from “what I know” and more from research. But I think there are just some experiences that beg to be written about, and I discovered a lot of them during the trip this summer.
And I think, after mulling over them for quite some time, that I understand why. It’s hard to write about things that are emotional or fun or scary. I think that’s because these emotions are hard to translate into words. You feel them, but how do you make other people feel them?
But then there are some experiences that are just weird. And I mean really out there, like people talking to sheep or a train derailing into a herd of cows (I will never stop referencing this story). These are the kinds of things that fiction writers look for, that they draw inspiration from. These are the kinds of things that get reactions.
Of course, the hard part is having these experiences. You can’t force them. But you can pay attention. You can write things down when you hear people talking about them, or when you read a weird headline. When you’re observant, you get to do a lot more writing and a lot less thinking of what to write. Stories are always out here.
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