A Writer's Well of Experience

 

There are writers who are twenty years old, and some of them do very well. There are also writers who are 75 and also do well. 

I think that the older the writer is, the more he/she can draw from lifetime experiences to enhance his/her writing. The younger writer can, too, but the well is not as deep as the one the older writer uses. In your forties, you know more than you did in your twenties, and in your sixties, you're filled with more experiences than in your forties. There's no right or wrong; it's the way life is. 

Our poster for today tells us that nothing that happens to a writer is ever wasted. Whether it is joyful or tragic, we keep it with us forever, and we draw on those experiences for our stories, memoirs, personal essays, and more. 

It's much easier to write about something if you have lived it. You know not only the building blocks but also the emotions involved, as well. You know the reactions of others to what occurred. All this makes transferring what happened into print easier.

What if you had the opportunity to be a Peace Corps worker in your post-college years? Off you went to a foreign land seeing and doing things you never would have in your own country. All those experiences are filed away in your mind to perhaps be used later in your writing. 

Whatever happens to you in life, the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, all create the person you are. If you are a writer, all those things will help you as you write. 

Some writers jot notes in a small notebook when something they see or do impresses them. Many story ideas come from what happens to us, what we perceive in others, and more.

The longer a writer lives, the deeper the well of experience. And the more he/she can write about.