My Own Good Advice for Writers- Part 3

Turn off the TV and the DVD player.
Disconnect from the internet.
Silence the radio, the stereo, and the MP3.
Put down the book.
Avoid the magazine, ignore the mail.
Don’t answer the phone. Don’t dial the phone.
No IMing either.

Now, just sit a while, in the quiet. Don’t try to still the mind. This isn’t meditation. Encourage the mind to meander, floating like a patch of seaweed, torn free and traveling the oceans tides. Watch it and listen. Listen for the next thing that you are going to write about.

Your story may be something shifting slightly at the periphery of your mind, just waiting for stillness to accentuate its movement so it can be noticed. It’s that connection that you did not make at the time, when you were sensory drunk on the information smorgasbord we all indulge in every day. Now it comes to you, meandering, an idea with arms outstretched. An idea looking right at you, waiting for acknowledgement.

It might be something you saw on TV, or realized as you watched a DVD. Maybe it was in the lead characters journey or in the scenic background of the adventure, maybe it was the heart beat of the movie that sparked your story.

Possibly it was something you saw on the internet, or in an e-mail from a friend. Now it pushes through your mind and reaches up, growing a tall reedy stem and a couple of leaves, now forming a bud about to open.

Maybe you heard it on the wings of a song, a song that floats in your mind like a gull on an ocean side air current. High into blue sky, then dropping to touch the water and catch a memory worth recalling and sharing.

Could it be that it was hidden in your favorite author’s style, the rise and fall of literature in general, or between the pages of the novel you just finished?

Possibly your launch pad was a look at the current news or entertainment magazines full of flashy political photo op’s, lots of smiling celeb’s and plenty of spin. Maybe a semblance of truth is picking at the back of your mind waiting for expression.

There is always the possibility that your notion of a story came in the form of a letter from a friend, or a bit of junk mail asking for a donation. Yes, maybe in giving you do receive, maybe your donation and you expanding understanding and compassion are the story.

It could be your story was born in the last conversation you had with a good friend.

The ocean of information that we swim in every day threatens to drown us as it presents numerous opportunities in the same towering wave. Sit on the beach of disconnected silence. Watch your story float on the waves. When it gets so close you can see the whites of its eyes, throw it a life preserver, and pull it to shore.