My thoughts on observational writing
I’ve found the process of writing all these observations over the past 3 weeks to be honestly pretty difficult, especially given the reintroduction of stage 3 lockdown in my part of Victoria. Due to this I’ve been left with basically what I can see in the house, out the windows or from my car as the only things I could really observe, which has certainly been a challenge. Mostly I’ve just found it difficult to choose what to write about – once the decision was made or the inspiration found the actual writing component was at times tricky but certainly not impossible. My first couple of observations were described by Robin as a little too diary-like, so in the following weeks I really doubled down on trying to actively describe the spaces around me rather than just how they made me feel. This part of the process was probably the most difficult, but the most rewarding when I felt like I managed to do it. I actually ended up finding a lot of inspiration unintentionally in the book I’ve been reading (‘Kudos’ by Rachel Cusk – mentioned in the first reflection) and also in an album I’ve been listening to – ‘You Won’t Get What You Want’ by Daughters. Both of these things are really descriptive and bring out strong imagery in my imagination so I’ve really been focusing on trying to capture the same sort of vibe in my own writing.
I don’t know that I’ve really developed much of a uniform style or voice in my writing yet, but I think in intention at least they’re all quite similar. I’m mostly focusing on the spaces and environments around me (mostly out of necessity due to COVID isolation) and have been trying to merge how those environments look with how they make me feel. It’s hard to gauge exactly how successful I’ve been in doing this – as it’s sometimes hard to tell how well expressed my intention is just from reading it back to myself, but I’m looking forward to seeing Robin’s response once this first assignment is submitted.