CHANGE YOUR HAT!

 

CHANGE YOUR HAT

 

Editor T. F. Rice talks about being inspired by the idea of a writer wearing different hats. Featured reader at Poet’s Theatre in Hornell, NY on October 11th, she will wear many hats, quite literally.

            Life is a type of theater, but we snooze through the exciting parts, the funniest moments. To write creatively, one must be willing to wear many hats and not try so hard. Inspiration, or so-called “schooling”, is there, but we have to crash into it, and we can’t always do that within our usual routines. Get a new hat!

            Trying too hard? Who, me? Which of us always carries notebook and pen, gets annoyed (or downright depressed) when the words don’t fly onto the page, rushes through the everyday because there isn’t any time to write…? Alternately, who stares at blank pages?

            What hats do you wear, or do you only own one? PUT ON AN EXPLORER HAT to experience new places, things, tastes, types of creating…instead of being redundant in life. How habitual is your life; do you park in the same place every day at work? Choose a different time to run your errands. Try writing in the morning instead of at night. Read a book of a different genre.

            WEAR YOUR SECRETARY HAT! Write words down when you think of them, or they may be forever lost. Small ideas for writing don’t come back around. Tape record ideas while in the car, if you commute. On slips of paper, jot down words that jump out of your day. What other types of hats must the writer be willing to wear?

            BE THE WIDE-EYED CHILD WITH PROPELLER’D CAP, paying attention instead of rushing and squinting at the world. Open your eyes wide and… sometimes listen to other points of view without interjecting your own. Spend a Saturday in a new place. People-watch. Take flight on a swing at the park. Eat at a new restaurant; if you don’t know what to order, ask the waiter for a recommendation. 

            What was that quick definition of insanity, again?... Doing the same things over and over, expecting the results to change? How can we expect our writing to evolve, if we don’t change our hat once in a while?! Attend a writers’ group. Read a new magazine. Get the paper from another town. Go out in the cold, or the sun, or whatever experience you normally avoid. Change… your hat.

 

Originally published in The Other Herald, Oct. 2007.