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.
I think it just gives someone something different to write about rather than more. I can come up with a dozen article ideas just walking around my local park and chatting to people!
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.
Haha I haven’t personally gotten there yet to turn the idea into non-fiction but we can see what can be made of it!
I did get a (LONG) personal essay idea from watching a YouTube vlog about the benefits of being alone and attached a lot of personal stories to it. That comes out tomorrow, and it’s a little nerve-wrecking but it’s personal and I hope someone can find something in it to take with them :)
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!
Thanks so much for your contribution. It's fun to hear from other writers. Especially when we are simpatico!
I agree: great angle, brilliant research. But some of the most pleasurable reading for me has been about mundane matters.
There is always 0 to 10, and sometimes 11. I'm with you. Sometimes the most pleasant reads are pedestrian...
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.
So true Arman. Life is full of paradoxes.
Life is one dang paradox after another haha
I think it just gives someone something different to write about rather than more. I can come up with a dozen article ideas just walking around my local park and chatting to people!
Totally agree, Terry.
Agreed. A phoneless walk outside lets the mind come up with all kinds of creative ideas.
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.
When is your Dairy Queen story being published? Thanks for commenting, Cierra!
Haha I haven’t personally gotten there yet to turn the idea into non-fiction but we can see what can be made of it!
I did get a (LONG) personal essay idea from watching a YouTube vlog about the benefits of being alone and attached a lot of personal stories to it. That comes out tomorrow, and it’s a little nerve-wrecking but it’s personal and I hope someone can find something in it to take with them :)
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."
Thanks for the comment, David!
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!
Love all the comments! Thanks Priya!
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.
Thanks Jim! While researching this post, some people put Hemingway in the mundane camp. Hmm?
;-) 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.
I've only started reading fiction again.I think I may try to write it someday. (https://youtu.be/sEORoXfE0_4)
Interesting question and thanks for all the examples. Life gives us details ... imagination gives them wings.
I love that saying. Life gives us details...imagination gives them wings. ~ Joyce Wycoff
I may just print that on a coffee mug!
An interesting life and an interesting mind are two completely different, separate things.
Yes!
Beauty comment!