I like the idea of looking at familair things with a new perspective. This writing idea is from Kathryn Petruccelli: Look at something in your environment, perhaps something you’ve seen many times before, that you think you know well. It could be a piece of art hanging in your house, or a plant on your windowsill. Get close and look again. Re-see it. After you’ve spent some time with it, create a list of metaphors—things it looks like, or reminds you of. Don’t be too attached to logic, be free with your associations. Maybe the comparisons will get wild as you go along. At some point, break the pattern of the list and slow things down by going deeper into description for one metaphor (extend it and explain it in more detail), or by making a statement—a simple subject-verb sentence—that reflects on or summarizes what you’ve said so far. Note…
Tag: Kathryn Petruccelli
Gratitude
Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Gratitude By Kathryn Petruccelli Spring in a cold place. Which means everything is so heartbreakingly tender—tulips lifting their dusky prom skirts, dandelions twinkling in their green sky. I’ve lived here a little while, this rural New England town, its six months of winter, a place accustomed to waiting for beauty to appear. I’ve left somewhere I loved to move far away in service to a restless heart, the bonus draw of family. In the time since, I’ve witnessed a father-in-law dissolve from brain cancer, a second-born survive the bypass machine, tiny heart sewn back together. Walking through the park with the baby, I call a friend back home to catch her up, or to remember who I am, or to plead with her to come visit and if she can’t, at least to understand. The wheels…