Remember a few posts back when I talked about travelling to gain inspiration? What I didn't really mention at the time was to try striking up conversations with random people and seeing what sort of ideas come from these encounters.
I've taken the train on long trips twice in the past few days and twice I ended up sitting next to chatty people. I'm always divided about such seatmates. On the one hand, they interrupt my music-listening and writing. On the other hand, they tell you such amazing stories about their lives. If you get someone who's a little older, they tell you fascinating things about everything they've accomplished and what their children and grandchildren have done.
One woman I met was a widow of 10 years who used to be a dietician at a big hospital. She now lives in a small place and loves reading, especially a good mystery. She told me all about her daughters, and the interesting work they do. She was immediately outlined as a character in my mind, and you can expect to see her in a future book.
It's always worthwhile to take these opportunities to get to know people. For one thing, it makes the trip go faster to have someone to chat to, and you never know who you'll connect with because of it. Maybe one of these days I'll sit next to an editor at a big publishing house who's looking for something fresh and new ;)
This is today's advice.
Oh, I also managed to work on Chapter 2 of my new book, so it turns out I was productive anyway!
Hello Krista Walsh,
ReplyDeleteI just had a look at your blog, and I noticed that your blog is a lot easier to read than many other blogs that hardly have any white spaces.
Also I had a look at several of your posts and read the text near the top of this blog about how you like to attempt to bring your world into the real world with writing.
This is a process that I have called 'Footstep Fiction' a way of writing where you aim to anticipate on reality or aim to 'Design' your wished for reality. (btw recently I wrote a post about it, that you can find at:
http://hpshappywriting2.blogspot.com/2011/08/talking-about-footstep-fiction.html)
On my blog(s) I aim to write in a Chatty Conversational way, you are welcome to have a look, and it goes without saying that you are also welcome to be conversational and write - Comments - on any of the blogposts.
All the Best,
To your Happy - Writing - Inspiration,
HP