Free e-Course : Want to become a Writer?(Part 7)

Chapter I : Basics
Writers are not born (continued)
While learning to ride a cycle, you were told innumerable instructions by your mentor, just to safeguard you from falling and get injured. You learn cycling after some falling and bruises - but nevertheless learn finally the skill. Likewise, Writing is a skill you are going to learn by practicing. You may not get hurt by bruises here, but would get disheartened – unless you follow the instructions carefully and practice them ardently.
Well – visualization of real things – what is happening around you – into a different perspective is the starting key for writing. That is - whatever you see, experience and feel gets stored into your mind as thoughts. You know Writing is pouring your thoughts into words. You are going to “write” those thoughts into words – it is that easy.
The only mental exercise at this stage of preparing your mind, as clean like a well prepared soil for cultivation – is to OBSERVE. Want to know the difference between just “seeing” and “observing”?
Well – while you are on your way, you see a man hit by a car. Curiosity ends, when you see who is the man hit, his condition and what happens to him thereafter – like people rushing to help him and taking him for medical care. If you have the writer’s mind, you would not just simply see, but observe the whole thing more closely. You make a mental note of the appearance of that man; his approximate age; the injuries suffered by him (right leg; left hand; or backside of his head etc.).
You also observe the scene of occurrence for possible causes of that accident – reckless driving of the car; careless walking of the man; or a sudden development of somebody whirling around by skidding etc.
Now, if you are asked to explain the accident to some one else – your friend perhaps – all you can say is there was an accident on the way. Just this much, if you had only “seen” the occurrence of the accident, like most of the people around there.
But you can narrate the accident in detail more vividly, by having the mental attitude required for a writer. The color of the shirt the man was wearing; the real impact of the accident; extension of the injuries and what could have caused the accident – everything, if only you had “observed” the scene of the accident, with the mind of a writer. Can you now see the difference?