How to find new and exciting things to write about… and how authors go about finding them in the most unlikely places.

 

First you must explore:

Seek for important things other people miss. Facts that will `blew their minds.’   

All those exciting  facts

…Could be staring you right in your face!  

• How observant and sensitive are you to what is happening around you? 
• How perceptive and astute are you? Do you look deeply enough into things? 
• Do you stop to use all your six senses to find what you are looking for?  
• When you are emotionally involved, you are more likely to catch the importance of something and remember it.
• You could have been too busy to take time out and have fun doing research for all those things you have always wanting to know about? 

Facts are like sparkling gems:

For example: To paint highlights in art, you have to half-close your eyes to find them. So you will know where to place them in your painting.  

You see, highlights show up and sparkle best when placed in dark areas, or next to dark spots and within dark areas. 

• And finding new factual gems is just like that. They also tend to be hidden in unexpected unknown `dark’ places. 

Just for fun try half closing your eyes and see if you can spot highlights and where they sparkle.  

• If you have never done this before, it’s best to try it out first on a bright sunny day. For example: if you are in a carpark, the shiny chrome stuff sparkles brightly. 
• For artists, they get used to doing this, and are able to see highlights even on a dull day. Why? Because they look for sparkling highlights where there is contrast, of tones or where there is contrast of colours. 

Exciting facts tend to stand out where things contrast. 

Reflecting thoughts:

If you have time, also look for sparkling reflections. They bounce off shiny smooth surfaces into darker places. Like the sun shining on water. wet things reflect colour into shadowed areas. 

For example, boats in harbour, the reflection of the seawater in seen in the shadowy underside part of the boat’s bulk (stern and bow). 

• This illustrates that new facts are sometimes are found in subtle places. One thought bounces off into another thought and that triggers off more `gems’ thoughts. 

How to observe more closely!

As the saying goes: `Finding a needle in a haystack’ isn’t easy!  

(But we don’t usually have a haystack in town houses or compartment building in towns. Anyway who would be doing sewing near a haystack? That would be silly!) 

Getting back to the point… sharp point… Sorry about the pun, but just couldn’t resist that! And sometimes while searching you find it by getting your fingers `pricked’! ;) 

Let’s face it. Finding facts or new ideas, sometimes means doing quite a lot of research before you find anything profoundly exciting. 

You have to be real sharp:

• To find any lost `needle’ fact, you have to compare differences of shapes and textures. 
• And perhaps from another angle. Half closing your eyes is like been a shrewd cop investigator. 
• And if you pull out your torch (enlightenment) you tend to find it shining in dark unknown places! 

Gem facts are there… sometimes sparkling, `staring’ you right in your face! It all depends on how sensitive you are to scrutinizing concepts more carefully.