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Creative Writing Ideas – one point of view
By Deb Gallardo
Write A Way: Journey to Creativity
How Our Senses Influence Our Creativity: Vision
by Sandra Schubert
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand. ~ Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of US (1856 – 1924)
When I thought about what to do for my columns for this year, I thought about revisiting some previous topics with eye to exploring how our senses can influence our creativity. The beginning of the year we envision what that year will look like for us. According to the dictionary vision “is a special sense by which the qualities of an object (as color, luminosity, shape, and size) constituting its appearance are perceived and which is mediated by the eye.”
What if using this special sense we look at our lives in a new way? My eyesight is not the best. When I got my new glasses the world came back into view. I didn’t know what I had been missing. Not that everything sparkled; I couldn’t help but notice that I needed to revisit cleaning my apartment. But the fuzziness I had been living with disappeared and the edges came back into focus. It was like a sense I didn’t have before was discovered.
You are an artist and your life is what you are creating. Bring light when you can. As Goethe said on his deathbed, his last words: ‘More light!’ ~ Jan Phillips, Author, The Museletter
Making our way through the world we use all our senses. We touch, taste, feel, smell and listen. We can’t get away from all of this stimulation. Our creative selves swim in a sea of senses. The question is can we use this to be our better selves?
One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. ~ Andre Gide French critic, essayist, & novelist (1869 – 1951)
Often, we artist follow the same daily routine. We can become stale. Our art remains the same, our words bore even us, and the music we play has no feel to it. Our routine can blind us to other possibilities. You want to write that book on whales but what really resides in you is a play about your family. Each day you plod along joylessly struggling to find the words. Still each day, each week, and every year you put the book on your goal list. Words fail you. The struggle is to create a new vision for yourself; bravely entering a new world in which you find true joy in creating.
I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight. ~ Robin Green, Northern Exposure, Burning Down the House, 1992
What can we do? Use our vision differently. Don’t just create your future based on the same old vision of what you know. Discover something new. Envision an adventure for yourself. One that includes new vistas and new dreams never dreamt before.
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. ~ Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi, in Irving Good, The Scientist Speculates (1962) US biochemist (1893 – 1986)
I know what it’s like to live with limited vision. I have my dreams, the ones I hold on to and bring out each year like old memories. It so hard to part with them. It is easier to hang on to the familiar then to admit a dream no longer has merit for the person you have become. When I begin to search for meaning in outside influences, I know that what I am currently pursuing is not big enough for me. Like my yet to start exercise program, stretching beyond my creative comfort zone seems so very hard to do. Even if I am not there yet, I know it is possible. I know it is possible for you too. Use your unique and beautiful vision to create a new world. A new world that is big enough to a hold wonderful creative life.
Try these creative writing ideas this month….
Sight: A sense; a helpful one…
Take it away for 15 minutes. In a safe place or with the help of a friend blindfold yourself. Experience the world without this sense. How do your other senses come into play? Do you rely on one more then the other? Walk around and touch things. Sniff the air. Use your ears. How do things sound when you can’t see? If you have an escort, try to walk around outside and feel the air, and the sounds of the world.
What did you learn? Did you hear, taste or smell differently? How do things look now that have your sight back?
Practice seeing…
Find five things a day that are different. As an example, go to work and look at your normal environment. Look at the ordinary things and then find the extra-ordinary things. What does the ceiling look like? The color of the walls.
Create a story using your new sight. Add as many visuals from your everyday life as you can. Have the story be as visual as you can make it.
Sandra Schubert is the creator and instructor of the online writing courseWriting for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own. To learn more about Sandra and her course, click here: Course Overview
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