RWT: Finding Inspiration in Life, Love, and Sea Turtles
I recently went to the beach with a few friends and we decided to go out for a late walk one night. Imagine our surprise when we stumbled across the beautiful girl in the image above. Yes friends, that is a 300-pound loggerhead sea turtle. And guess what, she's a mama! She was laying her eggs when we got there, right in the middle of the beach at 1:00 in the morning! We took a few pictures and then stepped back and turned off our lights so she could do her thing without us bothersome humans getting in her way. We also called the sea turtle hotline (yes, that's an actual thing) to make sure the right people knew where she was and could protect the nest from morning beach traffic. We stayed with her until she had finished laying, covered up her eggs, and dragged her tired mama self back into the water.
Okay, so that's great and all, but how is this supposed to help with writing? Oh ye of little faith, just you watch!
Here's the deal. When I was sitting there in the dark, a stone's throw away from a giant mama turtle, I was hit with how much of an EXPERIENCE it was. I'm pretty sure I'll never get to see something like that again in my life, and the whole thing was just so surreal. We were the only people on the beach, sitting underneath a huge starry sky and looking out over the endless ocean. We couldn't hear anything but the waves, the wind, and the sounds of a mama turtle pushing sand over her little babies. There was just this overwhelming sense of the WORLD!
At the time, I wasn't thinking hmm, how could I make a blog post out of this? But looking back later, I realized how valuable those kind of experiences are to us as people, and more specifically, to us as writers. Our experiences make us UNIQUE. I don't know about you all, but I don't like reading books that align too much with my everyday life. You know the ones I'm talking about. When I was in middle school, I didn't want to read books about ordinary kids trying to survive ordinary middle school. It was old news because I WAS LITERALLY DOING IT. I want to read books about things I've never done and never seen, because that's what makes a story interesting.
There's a reason some experiences stick with you more than others. They just have something special that can be really hard to put into words. Here's the thing, if you DO find a way to put it in words, I guarantee there's someone out there that would love to read it.
And I'm not saying you have to make every impactful experience into a novel, but each one can certainly be a valuable tool in your writer's belt. You don't have to use the whole experience either, just take the bits and pieces you need. For example, and it might sound silly, but I saw more emotion in that turtle than I ever thought I would see in a wild animal. She just looked so tired, in the eyes and the way she moved, but there was also this strong sense of purpose, like she knew she was doing exactly what she was supposed to.
Now, if I wanted to write any kind of scene in a story that involved a character's interactions with a wild animal, I have a new source. I can look back at mama turtle, try to recall what it was about her that had such an emotional impact on me, and then incorporate it into my writing. It would just add a little spark to a scene that I would have otherwise made up based on my dog's facial expressions and spastic behavior. Readers are smart you guys. They can pick up on stuff like that in a story, and trust me, special details really make a difference.
Sorry again that this post was so weird. I also realized after reading it that it sounds super insensitive, like I'm trying to write a commercial or something. Turn your life experiences into cold hard cash today! But I hope you guys get what I mean. I don't want you to treat everything like it's going to be a page in your next book, just don't forget the tools you've gathered throughout your life, because again, they make you unique. Let me know what you think in the comments!
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