April 29, 2024
Have you ever had a weird experience that led to an improvement in your work? (like something came up at an event or on tv that was oddly timely.)
This question stumped me.
My life has been filled with not-your-average experiences. Nothing spectacular when taken individually, but over a lifetime, they add up. Everything from having the front wheel of my bicycle fall off when I was going down a hill (Ending up with a broken collarbone and concussion) and dangling off a cliff four months later as part of a course in mountain climbing.
How about getting on a Greyhound bus (remember those?) with almost everything I owned and heading to a college I found in a book and never visited. (Pre-internet days.) Or getting engaged six weeks after the hubby and I met, married in three months, and still being together almost fifty years later?
What about living on the Oregon coast and moving to the coast of Florida, then moving to Wyoming? Or buying a house in Pennsylvania without setting my foot in the door before signing the paperwork?
None of those are unique. As a sum total, my life has been unusual.
I can’t point out any one of those experiences as leading to an improvement in my work. But overall, those events contribute to who I am and how I think, how I view the world. Naturally, that is reflected in my writing.
None of those are ‘weird.’
Weird is reading tarot cards for someone for fun and later finding out the prediction came true. Or figuring out the names of my house. (The front of the house is Priscilla, the back of the house is Harold. The house was built in two separate sections over 60 years apart. It’s my job to keep the peace between them. Penelope is the house goddess. The land the house sits on is Henry. That affects what I can do with landscaping.) I don’t know how that information will ever fit into my writing.
So no, I can’t put on any weird event that led to an improvement in my writing. A lifetime of work and many interactions with others have.
How about other authors? I’m eager to find out. You can too, by following the links below.
As always, until next time, please stay safe.
April 29, 2024
Have you ever had a weird experience that led to an improvement in your work? (like something came up at an event or on tv that was oddly timely.)