I noticed two interesting things when reading this morning.
The first happened when trying to turn the page. I got frustrated because I'd thought they were stuck together... not quite. Ultimately, I'd realized the book just had slightly thicker paper. Not unreasonably so, but the pages did have some weight and some texture to them. It um... well, it felt pretty good. And honestly, it made me like what I was reading even more, because it seemed old-timey and like it had some personality or something.
I'd been settled into my chair by the window, morning light faintly starting to appear on the other side of the glass. Reaching for my mug, I'd thought about how much of a dork I must be to notice a thing like that. And brushing past that silly moment of silent rage to speculate about the weight of the paper? What the hell?? I figured it was probably because of the paper samples Isobel's been checking out from printers for her mail club. But, realistically, I think that's just a "me" quirk.
I'm reading Bird By Bird right now by Anne Lamott. She broke my brain this morning with a writing trick I hadn't heard of. Or at least I hadn't seen it used like this.
School lunches. When you don't know what to write about, Anne suggests starting with your school lunches from when you were a kid. At first, I wondered while reading if it was just a gimmick to fit some kind of metaphor or lesson or something, but then I read her own example. She has such a distinct writing voice. I think it's fantastic. Sure, the point of the school lunch exercise is to be descriptive. But the bait-n-switch is that while you're focused on describing something specific, you inadvertently stumble into revealing yourself authentically for the way you see things.
Brilliant.
Face screwed up in concentration, I decided this wasn't necessarily new information—the idea of unearthing some initial bits of yourself to unlock the rest. But Anne did present it differently than I've come across elsewhere. And so, aside from noticing the texture of the book pages, I noticed that originality comes second to personality.
If you say things how you see them, originality will take care of itself.
What's something you'd heard a thousand times but didn't really get it until a specific person said it? What about it made it stick?
onward.
If you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along. And if something stuck with you while reading, I'd love to know what it was. For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory here.