Noticing

To be a writer is to be an observer. Above all, we are witness to the world. What catches your attention? Maybe it's the dad at the beach, who laughs as he splashes his two little girls in the waves. Maybe it's the way the leaves on the maple tree at the end of the driveway seem to dance as they catch the breeze. Maybe it's the elderly woman pushing her cart along the aisles of the supermarket in red Ked hightops.

Two of us can be in the same place and experience entirely different things. We each perceive the world in our own way. Take this and multiply it by the myriad of experiences that each of us have and you end up with something exponential. An infinity of experience. This is why everyone's writing is unique, as specific to the writer as a fingerprint.

This is why job one as a writer is to begin noticing.