My child, my teacher

"A child's attitude toward everything is an artist's attitude." ~Willa Cather, American author

Children see things in such original ways. Each day I listen to my four-year-old as he explains the world he knows using the terms he understands (or devises) and the explanations he imagines. His is such an interesting and refreshing perspective! We can learn so much from children and the way they view the things around them. Listening to my son reminds me that I need to be original and free in my approach to my writing, using my words to describe the world as I see it and not as how I think others want or expect me to see it.

Too often, I think we as writers worry so much about what's correct and acceptable in writing that we start to lose our own voices. We sometimes force ourselves to follow certain rules or formulas when all we should be doing is getting the story on the page in whatever form it's supposed to take--without worrying about that critic (real or internal) who stands behind our left shoulder and tells us that what we're doing is wrong and unacceptable and will never sell. My kids don't worry that the things they say are stupid or too simplistic or wrong; if they feel it or see it, they say it--without inhibition, without fear, without worry.

And that's exactly how we writers need to write.