It’s been said many times that a person should “write what they know”.
I’ve decided to take this advice with a grain of salt.
The grain of salt is this:
“The only real wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” Socrates
I'm pretty sure that not every author who has ever written a great mystery actually spent time with their local police force, working as a detective and male writers who write from the perspective of a female character have, in most cases, never temporarily become female.
Yet, their stories are compelling and believable.
How is this possible?
It has to be possible due to the fact that our brains come equipped with a beautiful thing called imagination!
Imagination, the first cousin of empathy, allows us to put ourselves in the shoes of a person whose culture, background, family life, and every day happenings is completely different from that of our own.
As imagination moves us to"become" this new character, watching the world through their eyes, some part of our own personality begins to mature.
The way to not only write, but to live, in the fullest sense is to occasionally remove ourselves from the skin we’ve grown comfortable in and see life from a different perspective. I thought about this topic for a number of reasons, and one main reason has to do with a few of my friends who happen to be Deaf.
Sometimes, when I’m in the company of a hearing friend and a Deaf friend, as all three of us are together I forget to sign and just start talking to my hearing friend.
Recently, a hearing friend of mine who has a Deaf person in her family mentioned to me how hurtful it can be to completely exclude a Deaf person from a conversation.
Of course I didn’t mean to purposely exclude my Deaf friend, I just got "tired of signing". Even so, by my failure to view the situation from my Deaf friend's point of view I made her feel left out.
Now, I can imagine how she must have felt, watching the two hearing people who she viewed as friends, laughing and talking with each other. If I were her, I would've put on a poker face, so as not to show how dejected I felt, and carefully watched their lips as I tried to make out just what they were laughing about...
Not cool Paula, not cool…so, I’ve got to work on signing more with my Deaf friends... and also on writing from the perspective of a character who it may be a challenge for me to relate to.
This post was soooo random, thanks for stopping by to read it, lol!
I’ve decided to take this advice with a grain of salt.
The grain of salt is this:
“The only real wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” Socrates
I'm pretty sure that not every author who has ever written a great mystery actually spent time with their local police force, working as a detective and male writers who write from the perspective of a female character have, in most cases, never temporarily become female.
Yet, their stories are compelling and believable.
How is this possible?
It has to be possible due to the fact that our brains come equipped with a beautiful thing called imagination!
Imagination, the first cousin of empathy, allows us to put ourselves in the shoes of a person whose culture, background, family life, and every day happenings is completely different from that of our own.
As imagination moves us to"become" this new character, watching the world through their eyes, some part of our own personality begins to mature.
The way to not only write, but to live, in the fullest sense is to occasionally remove ourselves from the skin we’ve grown comfortable in and see life from a different perspective. I thought about this topic for a number of reasons, and one main reason has to do with a few of my friends who happen to be Deaf.
Sometimes, when I’m in the company of a hearing friend and a Deaf friend, as all three of us are together I forget to sign and just start talking to my hearing friend.
Recently, a hearing friend of mine who has a Deaf person in her family mentioned to me how hurtful it can be to completely exclude a Deaf person from a conversation.
Of course I didn’t mean to purposely exclude my Deaf friend, I just got "tired of signing". Even so, by my failure to view the situation from my Deaf friend's point of view I made her feel left out.
Now, I can imagine how she must have felt, watching the two hearing people who she viewed as friends, laughing and talking with each other. If I were her, I would've put on a poker face, so as not to show how dejected I felt, and carefully watched their lips as I tried to make out just what they were laughing about...
Not cool Paula, not cool…so, I’ve got to work on signing more with my Deaf friends... and also on writing from the perspective of a character who it may be a challenge for me to relate to.
This post was soooo random, thanks for stopping by to read it, lol!
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