Writing Tip 6 - take up activities that expand ways of seeing...

I'm thinking here of the visual arts (painting - especially realistic subject matter, looking at the familiar in new ways, drawing, sculpting, photography), the performing arts (inhabiting another character through acting - it is worth taking some acting classes, or learning to direct a performance), or drawing on the expertise of others who undertake these activities.

Listening, really listening to others, especially people whose perspectives are different from my own, and trying to understand things from their perspective. This can involve the temporary suspension of ego, and involves a certain amount of humility and empathy. It is not an easy thing to do because it often involves a willingness to lower personal defences, and can involve changing self-perception.

My feeling is that changing how we look at things sometimes changes what we think and believe (but not always), and can take quite a lot of courage. It puts the viewer in a liminal space, which opens up the writing to new directions.

Writers need to be courageous, and to use courage ethically - that is, there's not value in using writing to settle personal vendettas. There is value in looking at things in unconventional ways in order to further understanding.

Reading is vital, of course, reading the best of the kind of books that I might aspire to write, and the books that I don't normally read.

And books about ways of seeing. Two good ones (classics) are:

John Berger - Ways of Seeing
Roland Barthes - Camera Lucida

Writing prompt:

Go to a familiar area inside or outside your home and word-paint the scene as if you are attempting to impart the physical and sensory components to someone who is unable to see or experience it.