Time To Cultivate and Plant

by Connie S. Hall

What writing skills have you cultivated? Have you prepared the reader by digging deep furrows? Did you plant the seeds, and cover them carefully? Don’t just wait for them to grow; you have to water carefully and frequently.

At the end of the season, you need to gather in the bounty. Some of us get our rewards sooner than others, and some writers like myself seem to wait and wait.

One of the things I did this past year was attend workshops throughout the year. I always felt I gained much insight listening to new ways to write because everyone has room for improvement.

There are many books written to help you develop your writing abilities. I decide what my weak points are and read about ways to improve.

Learning to describe my senses was one area I studied this past year because I’m more aware of how important they are to my writing. I’m getting better at my descriptions, but I still have to work at it.

Using the senses helps writers reach out from the page into the sensory perceptions of the reader. One thing I studied was about layering descriptions such as; one thing tastes like another smells, a sound is a color, an emotion feels like something looks. When you use one sense to describe another, they call it synesthesia.

If you are like me, you’re so concerned with your own routine that you don’t always see, hear, taste, touch, or smell the world around you. You can expand your writing by using sense words to portray the emotions and attitudes of your characters. Remember to use smell because it can evoke complete memories. Since we experience the world through our senses, we should allow them to show in our writing. Make your story come alive by cultivating and planting these things.