Describing the Obvious and Everyday in Detail

Describe something, out loud into a recording device or in writing. Something nearby in your environment. For example, you can describe the floor, the desk, stuff on the desk or floor; anything mundane that you have not even noticed for days or months.

Important: Describe it in excruciating, increasing and precise detail.

Start with the obvious and then go deeper and deeeeper with the description.

Describe as though your describing to a blind person, or an alien. Go into the context, reason for it being, the texture, the odor, the way the light plays on it, the shadows follow it, the feelings it evokes in you, the usefulness of it, the problems with it, the good, the bad, and the ugly, etc. Describe any and all details that you can immediately sense - see, hear, feel, taste and smell… and any and all extensions as to purpose, creation, manufacture, asthetic, reason, etc. Describe using just one or two of your senses and then all of them together.

Look at what's there and what's hinted at. What does that shadow reveal… look for what's different, what's deeper, what's surprising, what's funny…

Here's the focus that turns this from silly exercise into a doorway to original writing: Be alert for any insights or flashes, especially if they are in surprising directions and follow them like Sherlock Holmes. Write the flashes down and let them lead you into writing still more.

Once you are writing just keep describing all hunches and nudges. Let your unconscious mind bring fresh insights and relativity by combining what you want to be working on with the mundane description. Your unconscious mind is a master at creating context from totally unrelated things.

This describing exercise is training in paying attention to those new contexts and resulting insights. For more in depth training in this go to: End Writer's Block Forever!