TIP: Pay Attention/Write from the Senses

A Writer's Book of Days - Judy Reeves

Pay Attention

Do you remember what you had for breakfast this morning? Can you describe the texture of moonlight on your bedroom ceiling or the face of the old man down the street as he walked his dog? "The truth is in the details," someone once said, and the only way to know the truth is to pay attention.

Paying attention brings into focus the specificity not only of good writing, but also of mindful living. The great spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh said mindfulness is to be present in the present moment. It is in the present moment you find the details that will enrich your writing and bring it to life. "There is ecstasy in paying attention," said Anne Lamott.

As you awaken in the morning, notice the light in your room, the wrinkle of the sheets, the smell of the air. Be present as you go through your day, mindful of such details as the mist rising from the orange you peel, the ridges of pattern in the peel's color that fade to yellow near the green nub of stem, and the stem's starlike pattern.

Notice what you notice, take the high points, and write them down in your notebook. Create word sketches of gesture, sound, color, texture. By paying attention to what you notice, you begin to see how the writer in you views the world and relationships. These recorded word pictures validate the world you see and experience. By paying attention and writing what you perceive, you find your own truth, and this is what you will pass on in writing.

Write from the Senses

The senses provide a physical world for our writing as well as a palette for rich imagery and language. It's through the five senses that we ground our writing in the concrete - the sight, sound, smell, taste, and feel of it - moving out of our heads and into our bodies. Words and descriptions reach our from the page and into the sensory perceptions of the reader and the piece comes to life for him.

Within the realm of the senses are born metaphor and simile. One thing is another; something is like something else. Imagery emerges from the chrysalis of sensuous language and takes wing.

As you write, pause to take a sensory inventory. Close your eyes and breathe in the smell of the place you're writing, listen to it's sounds, reach out and feel the textures, taste the air, the wind, the rain. It's not words you are looking for, but as Bear writer Jack Kerouac put it, "to see the picture better" - the colors, the shapes and textures of it, the way the light falls upon the bricks, the shadows of the doorway, the movement of fog over river.

• Begin writing practice with "I remember the smell of...I remember the taste of...I remember the feel of...I remember the sound of...I remember the sight of..." Focusing on one sense, capture in three or four short sentences the first image that comes to you, collecting specific detais as you go. As you put the concluding period on your first paragraph, but before you stop to think of another memory, write "I remember (the sense)..." again and capture the next image. You may be surprised by the images that appear and the memories that are evoked, especially if you keep your pen moving and don't stop to try and remember.

Fill a page with four or five short memores, then choose one and do an expanded writing from it, starting with the memory as you first wrote it, or enter the image from another point. Keep the rest of your list for later practice sessions.

You can do these sensory "I remember" exercises again and again; you're almost guaranteed a new set of memories each time. If one image continues to reappear, you can be certain it is one that wants to be written about. Honor it by writing it.

• Create pages in your notebook for litanies of smells, tastes, textures, colors, shapes, and sounds. Continue to weed out cliches as they sprout. When you come upon one, rework it to make it fresh.
• Describe a place using only sight, only smell, only sound, only taste, only touch.
• Take a sensory tour of your bed, your desk, your room, your house, your back yard. Sit with your notebook for a time and write your perceptions like an artist who continues to look from subject to page, sketching in details, then going back for more.