Where Writers Learn

If you found the practices in the last lesson difficult, you may decide to give up on writing. I urge you not to do that! There are good reasons why it may be hard for you to use your imagination the way you want to.

First, the imagination has been entirely banished from our educational system (except, perhaps, in early childhood education). Instead, educators focus on the acquisition of information and the development of abstract thinking. (These are useful skills, but when they are relied upon to the exclusion of the imagination, they make us mentally unbalanced.) At higher levels of education, the banishment of the imagination is total, and “thinking about thinking” rules. If you have spent a lot of time in the academic world, you will probably have lost connection with your imagination.  Read More 

PRACTICE: FROM OBSERVATION TO IMAGINATION
Use one of your senses to notice something—the color of the sky, the sound of a bird or a passing car, the taste of your coffee, or something else of your choosing. Now wait until that “something” is no longer present before you—or close your eyes, if you have used them to make your observations. And now, in your imagination, recreate whatever you noticed: see that particular blue of the sky, hear the sound of the bird or car, bring back the taste of the coffee.  Read More 

When you practice using your powers of observation, you make that faculty stronger. In the process, you also collect a lot of material that you can use in pieces of writing. As you gather your material, and live with it for a while, you will find your own ways of using it. (Don’t forget, though, that you don’t have to use it, if you don’t want to; the most important value of the practice of observation is to strengthen that faculty.) Here are a couple of ideas to get you started:  Read More