Cool idea to write about and loads of great examples! Personally I agree with Hemingway - you need to live, but the I think “living” that looks boring from the outside can also be extraordinary depending how you see it and experience it. Some of my best sources of inspiration come from looking at or being involved in mundane things instead of my travels or the like. I need to come back to some of the authors you mention here in more detail. So well researched and fun, too. Thank you!
Interesting how so many amazing creators took opposite sides on this debate. Like everything in life, I think it requires a balance. Living a wild life definitely gives you more to write about, but if you're too busy living crazily you'll never sit down and create.
This was a great read! I feel anyone--of course--could write fiction if they wanted to with empathy and research.
I was thinking more of the lines of non-fiction, and I think even with a “boring” life, you can find friction, something you’re excited to share, a way to make it all connect into something engaging for a reader.
There’s a copywriter named Laura Belgray and she has/had a freebie that had TONS of mundane examples that could at least pique interest.
It becomes your job to stay observant of your thoughts and life to create story from it, but you’d need to experience life.
BUT, I see “experience life” as something you do when you just live versus constantly focus on cranking out writings and content. Just be self-aware and intentional as you live life.
Even if it’s a late night stop at Dairy Queen to try a new summer Blizzard.
I thought I had commented here. I can't find my comment so I will comment again.
I come down squarely in the camp of those who hold that an exciting life is NOT a pre requisite to outstanding literary output.
1) To write well, one needs an imagination and one needs verbal fluidity and verbal grace. I believe that reading good writers will stimulate both of these things. Consider, for a moment, the lyrics of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Lennon writes: "Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmelade skies...Newspaper taxis appear on the shore waiting to take you away,,, climb in the back with your head in the clouds and she's gone" I am ready to bet very good money that although Lennon had an exciting life, he never encountered a "newspaper taxi." You may say that this writing was stimulated by LSD, but LSD cannot create the germ of the image or word salad; it can only stimulate what is already in our minds to begin with.
2) One can have a very exciting life, filled with all sorts of entertaining characters, venues, predicaments and parties, and sometimes one's work will become a chaotic, noisy, cacophony that is too damn busy. The stuff does not cohere. The reader does not know who to focus on.
3) For about a hundred years, wealthy Americans held that it was imperative to go to Europe to become a good writer. They had a fun time in Europe courtesy of Daddy's money. I know kiddies who spend their entire junior year in college in Italy; supposedly, the exposure to different culttures automatically confers saviorfaire, chicness, yada yada yada. And after spending a year in Italy, they still can't speak a word of Italian. A Great Bob Dylan Song comes to mind: "You went to the finest schools all right, miss ... but you only used to get juiced in it."
I’ve thought about this and some of it especially in the case of writers like Austen or Kafka is knowing something about people and what moves them. For that one’s life doesn’t have to be full of external adventures. Great post, Paul!
Excellent observations. Collected varied experience is invaluable but keen observation, research and yes, empathy can help to overcome the dreaded "Imposter Syndrome."
After all, "The Dangerous Summer" was more a study of people than of bullfighting.
;-) Would love to see a pic of it if you do! Thanks for thought. I think I've used the Hemingway mindset as a reason to not write stories I haven't lived. You've started a rethinking process.
Cool idea to write about and loads of great examples! Personally I agree with Hemingway - you need to live, but the I think “living” that looks boring from the outside can also be extraordinary depending how you see it and experience it. Some of my best sources of inspiration come from looking at or being involved in mundane things instead of my travels or the like. I need to come back to some of the authors you mention here in more detail. So well researched and fun, too. Thank you!
Interesting how so many amazing creators took opposite sides on this debate. Like everything in life, I think it requires a balance. Living a wild life definitely gives you more to write about, but if you're too busy living crazily you'll never sit down and create.
This was a great read! I feel anyone--of course--could write fiction if they wanted to with empathy and research.
I was thinking more of the lines of non-fiction, and I think even with a “boring” life, you can find friction, something you’re excited to share, a way to make it all connect into something engaging for a reader.
There’s a copywriter named Laura Belgray and she has/had a freebie that had TONS of mundane examples that could at least pique interest.
It becomes your job to stay observant of your thoughts and life to create story from it, but you’d need to experience life.
BUT, I see “experience life” as something you do when you just live versus constantly focus on cranking out writings and content. Just be self-aware and intentional as you live life.
Even if it’s a late night stop at Dairy Queen to try a new summer Blizzard.
I thought I had commented here. I can't find my comment so I will comment again.
I come down squarely in the camp of those who hold that an exciting life is NOT a pre requisite to outstanding literary output.
1) To write well, one needs an imagination and one needs verbal fluidity and verbal grace. I believe that reading good writers will stimulate both of these things. Consider, for a moment, the lyrics of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Lennon writes: "Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmelade skies...Newspaper taxis appear on the shore waiting to take you away,,, climb in the back with your head in the clouds and she's gone" I am ready to bet very good money that although Lennon had an exciting life, he never encountered a "newspaper taxi." You may say that this writing was stimulated by LSD, but LSD cannot create the germ of the image or word salad; it can only stimulate what is already in our minds to begin with.
2) One can have a very exciting life, filled with all sorts of entertaining characters, venues, predicaments and parties, and sometimes one's work will become a chaotic, noisy, cacophony that is too damn busy. The stuff does not cohere. The reader does not know who to focus on.
3) For about a hundred years, wealthy Americans held that it was imperative to go to Europe to become a good writer. They had a fun time in Europe courtesy of Daddy's money. I know kiddies who spend their entire junior year in college in Italy; supposedly, the exposure to different culttures automatically confers saviorfaire, chicness, yada yada yada. And after spending a year in Italy, they still can't speak a word of Italian. A Great Bob Dylan Song comes to mind: "You went to the finest schools all right, miss ... but you only used to get juiced in it."
I’ve thought about this and some of it especially in the case of writers like Austen or Kafka is knowing something about people and what moves them. For that one’s life doesn’t have to be full of external adventures. Great post, Paul!
Excellent observations. Collected varied experience is invaluable but keen observation, research and yes, empathy can help to overcome the dreaded "Imposter Syndrome."
After all, "The Dangerous Summer" was more a study of people than of bullfighting.
;-) Would love to see a pic of it if you do! Thanks for thought. I think I've used the Hemingway mindset as a reason to not write stories I haven't lived. You've started a rethinking process.
Interesting question and thanks for all the examples. Life gives us details ... imagination gives them wings.
An interesting life and an interesting mind are two completely different, separate things.