The Writer's Life

Writers need to live the writer's life not only when they're writing, but even when they're eating dinner, riding the bus, and talking to their friends on the phone. But how is a "writer's life" different than anyone else's life?

Writers have to pay attention. As a writer, you have to be the person in the room mentally jotting down the interesting exchanges between people, and the way the light falls on the wall-to-wall carpet. The great writer Henry James said, "Be one on whom nothing is lost." How?

First, look around yourself in search of new things, all the time. Listen for startling ideas, bits of information. Watch people to see what kinds of quirks make them unique. Carry a notebook and write down your observations immediately before you forget them. Be alert for moments when something ordinary, like standing in a line, seems suddenly strange: Those are the times when the curtain is torn for just a moment between yourself and a bigger reality. And that's where writing comes from—that place where you and the bigger world intersect.

Start your writer's life today, and send me a post telling me what surprising things you noticed!

Laura Kasischke
Author of Boy Heaven