Lee: That’s right. He’s not gonna change, but I will. I’ll just turn myself right inside out. I could be just like you then, huh? Sittin’ around dreamin’ stuff up. Gettin’ paid to dream. Ridin’ back and forth on the freeway just dreamin’ my fool head off.
Austin: It’s not all that easy.
Lee: It’s not huh?
Austin: No. There’s a lot of work involved.
Lee: What’s the toughest part? Deciding whether to jog or play tennis?
People often believe that writers live an easy-going life dreaming up fantastical stories. This snippet from the play True West is a great example of that belief. But despite how simple it might appear, writing for a living is challenging. Writing is not all that easy–just like the character of Austin says in the excerpt. It takes time–lots of it. Before they can even put words on a page, writers need space to listen, observe, think, and reflect. These seemingly introverted activities go unseen by the onlooker because there are no results to publish regularly. However, writers are constantly engaging their senses and looking for inspiration, which is an essential part of writing.
Writers are always writing
Sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room, going to a fall festival, or taking a walk in the park are all things a writer might do. None of these may look or sound like writing, but for the person who writes creatively, they are. “There’s a lot of work involved”–to quote Sam Shepard’s play again. His or her mind is taking in and vetting information all the time.
In her book, A House of My Own, Sandra Cisneros says, “But for a writer, it’s when you look like you’re not doing anything you’re actually writing; people who don’t write don’t understand this.” 2 She highlights how challenging it can be to prove to others–especially one’s disapproving family in her case–that just because a writer is not performing the literal act of writing, he or she is still engaged in the process–“the work” it takes to get to the writing. Let’s explore some ideas of what writer’s do that doesn’t look like writing, but really is.
- listening to conversations going on at the next table when at a restaurant
- watching two people interact
- reading about a famous person
- recording musings in a writer’s journal
- having a phone or zoom call with someone from out of town
- reading or listening to the news
Listening to conversations
No matter the genre a writer specializes in, he or she needs to listen to how real people talk to each other. Luckily, those who write, like all humans, have errands to run, appointments to get to, and the occasional fundraiser brunch or volunteer event to attend. Being out and about provides a writer with the opportunity to generate ideas from listening with inquisitive ears to the conversations of others. A line of quirky but everyday bit of dialogue can spark a story or a script, or be the beginnings of a character sketch. The beauty of these examples from my own eavesdropping is that they are genuine.
- “So, how’s your love life?” A woman in her 60s said to the lady seated across the table from her at an Asian-Fusion restaurant.
- “I know these are the comfy chairs, but let’s go outside,” a man said to his friend at a coffee house.
- “My adventure line is here (designating an imaginary line with her arm). His was over there!” A young woman exclaimed to her colleagues as she pointed across the room.
Watching people
Watching how people interact with one another is great writer bait. When writers are watching interactions, they are taking a “fly on the wall” perspective and paying more attention to the details and happenings of the scene–leaving room for interpretation. The writer might jot down information about the location, the time of day, the clothes the people are wearing, any feelings of distraction, discomfort, agitation, or awkwardness they note, and any unexpected occurrences. A quickly documented people watching session can be used to start a story when the writer allows his or her imagination to fill in more details. I once watched a couple on a date and jotted down some things in my notebook about it. Here’s the description I wrote:
Couple on a date, outdoor patio, June 2021
Woman: wore a pencil skirt and a long-sleeved black top; ombre hairstyle; she arrived first and pretended to look at her menu
Man: wore a salmon-colored short-sleeved shirt; dark-brown, spikey hair; apologized to the woman for being late
Boy: wore a red pull-over; jeans; long, light-brown hair; rode an electric skateboard
Action: The boy almost runs into the couple; he maneuvers around them, narrowly avoiding impact.
Reading or learning about a famous person
Learning about the life of a famous person is another way that writers can find inspiration for their own writing. A person, their thoughts, or the interesting job they have–even the one they only had for a few months–can give a writer an idea. Shaunda Rimes, creator and writer of the TV show Scandal, interviewed a woman named Judy Smith. Smith’s career, most often referred to as a “crisis manager” to leaders, celebrities, and companies intrigued Rimes. Because of this, she created a character and then an entire seven season drama based on a person’s unusual career.
The life of Sandra Cisneros inspires me. She is a Mexican American author who “earns her living by her pen.”3 Originally from Chicago, she now lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and has dual citizenship. But for 29 years, she lived in the historic district of San Antonio. Reading about this big change in her life made me wonder what prompted her to make such a move. How did she know that her home needed to change after being in one place for so long? What she shares about her different abodes in the book A House of My Own inspired my own thoughts on what it means to settle into one location. I’ve written many a journal entry because of it–about where I live, where I want to live, and how to know when it’s time to move.
Keeping a writer’s journal
A writer’s journal is not a personal journal, but a separate one for mapping out ideas. It’s full of observations, musings and descriptions. Working in a writer’s journal is like creating a blueprint for a future character, setting, or plot. According to the author of Creative Writing Now, “Some writers make character profiles or draw pictures of their characters. You can also collect photos of people who look like your characters or places that you might use as story settings.”4 Most recently, I have used my writer’s journal to explore the idea of naming a home, to define what a gable is, and also to describe the home my main character lives in for my play in progress. Adding a picture to this entry would give me a great visual to have as I think through the script.
The Creative Writing Now author goes on to explain that, “the books you read will feed your writing, and you can use your journal to take notes or copy out passages that inspire you.” When writers are reading, they are likely to find quotes that promote their own thoughts or questions. The quote I used from Sandra Cisneros at the beginning of this post about how writers don’t always look like they are writing is an example of how someone else’s ideas can spark your own. I wrote down her words in my writer’s journal and then connected them to the line in True West about how writing is not all that easy, and here we are.
Having a phone conversation
Having weekly phone conversations with a friend is another activity that doesn’t look much like writing on the surface. When a person is actively listening to a friend, he or she is trying to understand that person’s perspective and world. The world of one person can be completely different from the other’s. One is married and one is single; one is employed, and one is not–whatever. Sometimes writers hear about something different from what their used to in their day to day and that gets the creative juices flowing.
My friend recently moved to a big city, so we keep in touch by phone. Because her new experiences with people and places are so unlike mine, I’m always intrigued. When we hang up, sometimes I jot down topics I’d like to explore further due to our conversation. That exploration might lead me down a path of research that can foster new story scenarios that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. Connecting with a person in this way may unwittingly provide material for a writer.
Reading or watching the news
Many writers read the newspaper or watch the news, but not just to stay abreast with what’s going on in the world. They do it to read about weird scenarios and real happenings that may inspire a question that might lead to a plot. The name of a person featured, involved, or quoted, can be the beginnings of a character who could come alive with a writer’s flare.
Joyce Carol Oates has used this technique multiple times in her novels (Butcher, Black Water, Blonde, etc.). It seems to be part of her writing ritual to look to true events and people for her stories. Judy Blume did something similar. Her novel, In the Unlikely Event, was inspired by a series of plane crashes in her New Jersey hometown. Even though she was 13 when the crashes occurred, she didn’t write the novel until she was 77. To get accurate information, she likely consulted old newspaper articles that chronicled the events from sixty years earlier. Backlogs of journalistic coverage are quite valuable to an author doing research on a past real-life tale or looking for inspiration to create a new one.
Conclusion
Just because a writer is not putting pen to paper or clanking away on the keyboard, he or she is still writing–all the time. To write a complete story or essay truly is a process. Most often that involves incorporating real people, places, conversations, events, and the words or selections of other authors. It’s a cycle that takes time. The gathering of information and inspiration is crucial to getting to an end product worthy of sharing with the world. Although writing is not all that easy, to those who do it, that doesn’t matter a bit. They just love the journey. Writing also doesn’t mean “Gettin’ paid to dream” as Lee says to his brother Austin in Sam Shepard’s play True West, but what a life that would be. I can get behind dreaming about that.
- Shepard, Sam. True West. Samuel French, 1981. ↩︎
- Cisneros, Sandra. A House of My Own. Title of Book. New York, Vintage Books, 2015, pp. 347. ↩︎
- “Sandra Cisneros.” Poetry Foundation, 3 October 2024, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sandra-cisneros. ↩︎
- William, Victor S. L. “Writing Journal Inspiration. “Creative Writing Now, 3 October 2024, https://www.creative-writing-now.com/writing-journal.html ↩︎
