on writing “little” things

Hello, all my fellow bookworms and writers!! <33 I hope you’ve all been having a delightful week and that you’ve all been able to enjoy an amazing summer! I’ve been wretchedly busy this past week, mainly because I’ve been knee-deep in rewriting my middle-grade fantasy, Island Keepers. I started rewrites for it earlier this week, and it’s been going well so far!! Taking a break has helped so much more than I can possibly say and while I can’t tell you too much about the story so far, it’s been nice going back to this world and writing an epic fantasy! <3

Today, however, I had a few thoughts on writing that I wanted to share with y’all.

Mainly about writing little things.

A lot of us here (as far as I’m aware of!) are novelists. We have these wonderfully long, in-depth stories, filled to the brim with worldbuilding and plot and all of these characters who are waltzing and running and gallivanting through our brains, alive and begging to have their stories told.

Writing a novel is a brilliant endeavor and it is full of amazing experiences. But sometimes, I tend to get lost in that. I tend to focus entirely on nothing but my novel and I end up getting burnt out. There are some days when every word feels like it’s pulling teeth and days when I doubt that I can ever actually finish this project.

That’s why I find it helpful to write about little things.

Things that aren’t related to my novel. Things that I never intend to publish. Some of my own little thoughts that I just want to pen down.

To me, writing is how I make sense of the world. It is how I untangle all my messy knot of feelings and memories and emotions and put them down onto the page. It is how I remember the things I don’t want to forget. It is, almost, how I figure out who I am, amidst all the chaos of life.

So what do I write about?

Well… anything. I have a journal that I’ve kept, ever since October 26, after I was inspired by The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion. I try to write in it every day. In it, I put down anything that comes to mind. Whether that’s rain, summer, or what happened that day. I write it down, without worrying about being good or worrying that anyone is going to see it — because no one is. All of this writing is just for me, to keep me sane and to give my thoughts a place to run wild.

This is one of the things I’ve written in my journal, when it was raining and I wanted to write and describe rain.

At last it’s raining. There’s nothing quite the same as summer rain — the cool freshness it brings amidst the freedom and glory of summer. And there’s thunder rumbling in the distance too, like something faraway that’s crept or snuck into our world. The birds are still chirping, in spite of rain. There’s a bird right now, and he sounds like he’s chuckling merrily, his voice echoing off the buildings. And then when the rain stops, i know a cool wind will pervade the air, for a while, and the air will feel so light and easy to breathe. The ground below will be slick, water droplets will cling to the leaves, and sometimes they’ll finally slide down, landing on your head with a sudden shock of cold upon your head. It happened to me many a time as a child, and I never liked it much, I must confess. And when it rains, it feels like something outside is happening outside in the world. Like Sky herself has parted her fingers and let cool water flow

  down

to us here on Earth. Sometimes, of course, the rain grows to a steady downpour, which sends a prickle of fear into me. But also delight and not a bad kind of fear. A fear as in I’d hate to have to face the rain alone outdoors. But there is also a delight, because when I’m indoors, it feels as though I am not alone, with the rain drumming on the window.

You will see that it’s not perfect. You’ll see that there are grammar mistakes (“something outside is happening outside in the world”. I’m fairly certain I meant to write “something is happening outside in the world”). But I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting this description of rain down onto the page.

To me, being a writer is noticing the little things in life and putting those down on paper and believing that my thoughts about those little things are important enough to be put down onto paper.

Will I ever use it in a novel? Who knows? All I know is that everything I write can serve as inspiration for a story, sometime in the future. And maybe not everything will turn out to be put into a book. But I’ll be glad to have written them anyway.

Because that’s what being a writer is all about. A friend once said that writers are like magpies. And I agree with that. We writers are, in a way, sort of collectors of moments. Random bits and pieces of the world and our own scribbly little thoughts. We use all of that to help weave together our stories.

So take a break from your novel for a bit. Look up from your laptop and go for a walk instead. Take a little notepad and pen with you if you want. Watch and listen and notice. Let yourself be inspired by the world around you. Write the little things. Believe they’re important enough to be written down, because they are.

Till next time, and wishing you the best of luck with all your projects,

-Isabelle