Time to stand and stare?

Ever heard the advice about writing what you know about?

That’s great for a plot line, place or character but what about the small details? How good are we as writers on the minutiae of everyday life? How good would it be if we could trawl through our memory banks and find that little gem which is perfect for the foam on the beach, the whipped trees in a November gale or the smell after a summer rainstorm?

I’ve long been a walker; not the type who goes on treks, wears the correct footwear and tramp well known pathways as some climbers bag Munros or Twitchers record the rare sighting. My walking is local, easy, and mindful, so no earphones with the temptation of music, an audio book or someone else’s views. I don’t bother with a notebook. I use my phone to capture images and sounds. Once back at home they languish, uploaded automatically to my cloud and I forget about them until, for example, today when I started to write this blog. I needed an image of the sea and remembered there was one of the rock off the shore of North Wales which I used as a focus for a piece of flash fiction.

It’s about allowing yourself time to stop, look and even crouch down on the floor to get closer to something. As a teacher in the distant past, we used to teach close observation drawing as a way of improving children’s skills which were transferable and helped improve attention to detail in maths, science and language learning.

I know people will say, ‘Where’s the time?’

Five minutes as you wait for a kettle to boil can work well. We’ve got windows and what we might see of the sky or the birds who fly past can lodge as an image in our brain for the future.

Others might argue they have no access to nature.  There is always the sky with constantly changing shapes and shades of clouds. Or there is parkland, trees along the side of roads and people’s gardens. Five minutes every day of mindful looking might just provide essential details when you next sit down to write.

As W. H. Davies wrote in his poem Leisure,

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?