Shhhhhh! Dammit. Just listen.
Inkslingers have this thing. It differs from you regular types. The writer has an innate gift. A supernatural unto-no-one-else power. Hmmm. Guess that’d just be a super power.
Okay-okay.
Where was…
Oh yeah. The gift like no other.
So word-herders have said special gift. It’s the heightened sense of listening. Yeah, that’s our sixth sense so suck it.
WE LISTEN TO EVERYONE.
*side note: while we listen to everyone and hear just about everything, this does not automatically mean that we actually do hear everything and actually listen to everyone. Directions are excluded as are conversations with significant others or other less important bullshit. **double side note: see tax code, relationship communication, parents, and basic life-important information. ***triple side note: also names. ****quadruple side note: so yeah, writers basically hear the shit they want to hear.
We hear. We hear some more. We listen to bullshit day-in and day-out. We hear even more. We listen again.
Some of the minutia sticks to our grey matter and hammers the inside of our braincave until it wriggles its way out of our fingers.
If it sounds painful, it is. Way painful. Writing is hard work.
This isn’t a technical blog. All the words need to do is enter your earspace domain and drift/float/transfer to your brainspace where they will be paddled around like two monkeys playing ping pong.
LONG LIVE BRAIN MONKEYS!
Oh, those aren’t a thing?
Says you!
Writers need to listen to the world around them. Here’s five reasons/ways/techniques to invade the hearing space necessary to get those pesky things we call ideas.
1. MAKE IT YOUR BUSINESS
Or at least don’t get caught being nosy.
It wouldn’t hurt ya to eavesdrop on a goddamn conversation every now and then. Ideas come from every day speak. It’s the chit-chat that helps us the most. It can spark the mindjuice and charge the brain battery.
2. PEOPLE WATCHING IS FOR SUCKERS
The real business is people listening.
Yeah, I just coined that phrase. It’s okay, you can use it. Go ahead. No, I mean use it now. Maybe in a sentence.
Listening to the people around you helps the idea train. It gets the engine going and keeps it chugging down the tracks to your keyboard.
3. LOUD CELLPHONE TALKER PERSON I’M LISTENING TO YOUR EVERY EARSPLITTING WORD
Besides being so annoying that you want to split this person’s head with a baseball bat, cell yell IS a thing.
We’ve all heard that annoying person cackling away on a cell like their yelling directions to a friend/acquaintance/mom across the globe. That one person is a key to many things. Mainly earplugs though. And the incredible need for increased sidetone. And either. Or both. Probably both.
Anywho.
That’s a perfect conversation to, err, um, overhear. It’s right there! How can you not hear it? There’s no turning to a good ear. You don’t even have to readjust your position behind the bush because IT’S RIGHT THERE. Stalking is not a necessity for this one. Again, right there.
4. EVERY DAY CONVO IS THE SAUCE
It’s the digestif of American offensive inquisitiveness.
Just don’t be too obvious during your natural instinct to eavesdrop. C’mon, we all like to listen. It’s voyeurism for the ears.
5. BE LIKE THE NSA
Okay, unless you have super secret spying gizmos and shit…
Just like our overreaching friends at the NSA, writers need to listen to the world around them.
The voyeur in all of us is alive & well. Cool post.