Five Tips For Cultivating – and Loving – Your Writer’s Eye

Recently, while a friend was recounting placing her estranged father in hospice, she mentioned the wind on that day, dropped in the curious and unique history of the town to which he will be moved, as well as the quotes of various family members who had hot-potatoed this tender task to her. There may have been a mention of a certain slant of light in her recall of the experience, but I’m not sure, because as she was speaking, I was experiencing a surge of my own thoughts about the artist’s eye. It got me wondering if I had any tips for you on how to cultivate and love your writer’s eye. I think I do.

My friend is one of the most gifted visual artists I’ve had the great good fortune to know. Her successful interpretation of what she sets out to show us is only matched by her courage. She takes on the big stuff, boldly and accurately. And listening to her speak I thought, not for the first time, that having such an eye comes at a price. I might go so far as to say it both delights, as well as hurts to have an artist’s eye. It has certainly caused me at least equal amounts of pain and pleasure to look out at the world the way I do.

So, here, I offer you five tips for cultivating — and loving — that writer’s eye of yours.

Let’s start with the pain of it.

The plain truth is that having the eye required to write will isolate you. We are oddballs, aren’t we, those of us who make art? Have you noticed? We are the ones who laugh first. Sometimes we are the first to cry. As writers, we itch to write things down when we witness them, sometimes scribbling things on our hands or the theater program in our laps. The people around us are not doing this, we sometimes notice. We are, and sometimes we are doing it unapologetically. Quite simply, it’s what we do.

This eye of ours also hurts because of its very empathetic nature. We are aware of the pain of the world. We should always strive to be this way. We are also well-aware of its absurdity, as well as its joy, color, delight, sexiness, inescapable contradictions and more.

And while you love some of those, between the isolation and the referred pain, you might get discouraged.

Here’s writer tip number one: Learn to love that eye of yours like the companion it is. Hook elbows with it, take it everywhere you go and it will supply you with no end of material.

As much as you will experience the ups and downs of this writer’s eye, please know that you will also feel a sense of real worth if you encourage this eye of yours. If you begin to value what you see, hear, feel and taste and record it, you will literally have something to show for all that collection work. I have dozens of notebooks, file folders full of unfinished stories, digital files of things I’ve noted, as well as a head full of references that are yet to be deployed.

Writer’s tip number two comes from my attitude on this, which is simply this: Good for me. Some people are packing guns; others grudges, some are brimming with nothing but good will toward all people. Me, I’m walking around with a head full of annotations waiting for a place to lay them down.

Writer’s tip number two: Pack a notebook and use it.

I simply cannot say enough about the notebook, so let me offer here another tip on that.

I love to peer into artists’ sketchbooks, my favorite being those of the watercolorist Maurice Prendergast.

These books show us snatched of images, trials and errors, impressions and so much more, and in doing so reinforce for us that all artists take notes and try things out. Even the greatest of artists and writers try things first. As Emily Dickinson so wisely reminds us, “We play at paste ‘til qualified for pearl.”

If you want to view perhaps the greatest of all writer’s notebooks, go see those of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was an inveterate notetaker whose notebooks were recreated and published and are available for you to own and view. Another writer showed me these when I was in my early twenties, and these notebooks qualified for me that each piece of work is created from what we snatch and grab and later mine.

And here is writer’s tip number three: Look at every notebook you are offered, and it will embed in you an appreciation for those notebooks of yours.

So, what, exactly, of all that we see, hear, feel, taste, smell and more, are we to capture? Obviously, we cannot get it all, no matter how good our writer’s eye. We don’t want it all. And every time I ponder this I think back to my twenties when I was taken to meet a family matriarch and one single word and accompanying gesture from her changed the trajectory of my life.

Apparently, it was an honor to be taken to meet her, she who ruled over this sprawling family. My role was a fiancé to her grandson and I was being checked-out. Well-equipped for the task, I had five hard years of Episcopalian girls’ school behind me where I was taught the fine art of conversation, the difference between a tomato fork and an oyster fork, and all-around etiquette. Seated on a settee, her silver tea service between us, I politely inquired about the newest member of her family, to which she flipped her palm into the air and remarked that the infant was “such a cunning child.”

When I look up the word, “cunning,” I see the definition listed in my Random House dictionary as “a skill employed in a shrewd or sly manner; as in deceiving; craftiness; guile,” and as we continued on in our meeting I noticed that she labeled some of the other babies in her family as such. Later, at cocktails, when several family members repeated that same phrase about the infant, I took aside my then-fiance and remarked that I thought they were using the word inappropriately.

How, after all, could a newborn be “cunning?”

Apparently, his grandmother applied the term only to offspring of those in-laws whose lineage the matriarch did not think worthy of her grandchildren. What I had I noticed was that flip of the hand, the word, and that the word had passed like a lit torch from family member to family member. And as I pondered this, the realization descended on me that I was amid a pack of snobs.

At the time, what I heard and saw unearthed an assurance that I was in the wrong place. But what it reinforced in my writer’s mind is that the right word – the exact word – is essential every time out. Flaubert called it “le mot juste.” Find it. Store it. Use it.

Writer’s tip number four: Listen up. Words characterize individuals as well as clans. Gestures mean everything. Watch for them and match them to the emotional content of what that person is saying – or not saying – in the moment.

Which brings us to the tricky topic of judgment. While others may be amazed at your stellar memory for recalling what they said, lo, those many years ago, or for remarking on what gestures or language runs in their family, so too might someone accuse you of being judgmental and unforgiving for these very same qualities. For this, I have a response. Writers are not unforgiving; we are unforgetting. There is a difference. With that in mind, you might consider forgiving us — and yourself — for remembering these things. After all, it’s our job to do so.

Writer’s tip number five: Own who you are.

Love that writer’s eye of yours. When the arc of an eyebrow or the use of a word sticks to you like a burr, capture it. Feel through the pain, reward what you see by taking the time to write it down. Revel in every opportunity to view the notebooks, sketches, and first drafts of others.

You were gifted with a writer’s eye, but like all great equipment, it must be cared for. So care for it. Deeply. And love it. And write.

Want more? Come take a class with me. We now have both live and recorded classes on how to write memoir. Our live, online memoir classes include:

Memoirama, A 90-minute introductory class in how to write what you know.

Memoirama 2, a 2-hour live, online class in book structure.

How to Write Opinion Pieces, a 90-minute online class in how to write op-eds, radio essays, digital commentary and Substack columns.

The Master Class, a 6-month, class in how to complete a first draft of a memoir.

Our recorded classes include all of the above plus The Fine Art of the Personal Essay.

And please listen in and subscribe to my podcast. It’s called Qwerty, and includes interviews with stellar published writers who answer questions to help you with your work.

Photo by Arteum.ro on Unsplash