We miss such a lot! Do you go around with blinkers on, like a cart house standing quietly awaiting commands where to go next?

Each day goes by…

From one boring day to the next, our lives just whizzed by! Just like that… in a blink of an eye! 

And then one day we wake up and wonder what happened to it? What did we achieve in all that routine stuff we did? We lived a dreary life, for what? 

• Were you too busy with day-to-day chores? What opportunities have you missed? 
• Could you describe the beauty of any sunsets you have seen… in words? 

If you want to be a writer,  

1. In order to describe things, you have to rely on your memory.   
2. That means you have to have been very observant. How things looked, sound, what happened and why, etc.  
3. Not only what you saw, but also how you and others would react to what was occurring. It’s observing people’s behaviour patterns to certain activities. 
4. So being observant also includes sensing the emotional impact of things had on you and others. 
5. It’s `stopping to smell the roses’. Taking time out to enjoy life! Really looking deeply into and at things and think about what you were actually seeing. 

So what are the rewards?

Not only will you live a full and rewarding life, earning more about life and having a better social life, but also learning to appreciate the fullness of Nature and the energy of space and time. 

That may not seem much of a reward now, but once you live a more observant life, you will begin to understand the value of been more observant. 

Let me tell you

How I lost my artistic talent for a few years!  

I had won local, national and international prizes for art while still at school. 

But after leaving school, in order to earn a wage and support myself, I worked in an office doing mundane office routine tasks. After a couple of years I got married and I was so busy being a housewife and mother I no longer took notice of the world around me. 

Then came the time when I wanted to do copper-work and also started painting again. That’s when I realized I had forgotten how things grew and the form-shape of things. Like how to draw branches growing out from tree trunks, and how palm tree leaves hung, etc. 

•  You see, each variety of plant life has a different growth pattern and also their basic outline shapes. Also tree foliage isn’t just straight green. There are different shades of green, blues, etc. And you have to know all that, in order to draw and paint things authentically. 

Losing touch with life was a real wake-up call for me. I knew I would have to work hard to gain what I had lost. I seriously started looking around me and what was occurring.  

• I learnt there is a rhythm in and to everything. How the wind blew the trees and grass! The rippling of water over the brook, the rhythmic fluttering of butterflies, humming of bees and the chirping of birds as they went about their business was calming to the soul. 
• And light effects: How halos are formed when the sun is setting low.  Observing rim lights and highlights when there is strong back-lighting. Creating all those special effects, helps you capture the mood of scenes. 

And so it is with being an author:

• You have to capture the essence of scenes and moods, in order to affect the hearts, minds and emotions of people who read your stories. 
• When you write about people, you must know human behaviour patterns and how they react to certain circumstances. 
• You have to know, how to visualize scenes, in order to cook up action in those places. What the people were wearing and what the buildings looked like, etc. 

The more observant you are, the better quality of your writing and how your stories unfold.