By Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)
When I worked on the newspaper, silence was impossible. Between the front door opening with visitors to place ads and fight over stories, the presses running in the next room, 20 phones ringing and the police and fire scanners going off all the time, quiet didn’t exist. I wrote in the middle of noise chaos on deadline.
Writers must focus to create. While taking an online writing class about being a successful writer from Bob Mayer, he asked an interesting question. Where do you write? Which environment? I discovered I write and edit different types of writing in different locations with varying noise levels. It all depends how we have trained ourselves to create.
Writers attach ourselves to keyboards in quiet places to coffee shops and then as published authors have to go out and sell our wares. Different skill sets. Right now I am reading the book Quiet – The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. She writes about how today’s’ society has made it a requirement to be an extrovert and more than one-third of us are introverts. She wonders what happened to it being okay to think, ponder and listen.
Very interesting book. When we age, we tend to become more of what our type is, not less. So perhaps this is why when we get away from the stress of our day jobs and want to write at home or on the road, us introverted writers seek quiet. Silence to let the muse run wild and catch up with our subconscious.
With all the beeps, tweets, cell phone jingles, cross walk chiming and general noise in everyday life, silence is truly golden. Many times when I write music plays in the background. Then other times I want complete silence, until the cat can’t stand it anymore and knocks a pen off the desk. Have you given yourself the gift of quiet lately?
Leave a Reply