Every day, I hit YouTube and try to scan for things I think will be relevant to our readers. There have been a lot of talks from college professors from Harvard and Stanford, and now I found one from Cambridge, so we're getting international advice. In this insightful video, Professor Robert Macfarlane takes us on a journey through his writing process and reveals a connection to the natural world and a meticulous approach to language. His theory is that all writing sounds too much alike these days. Let's dive in. What's Going on With Writing? The chat starts with Macfarlane talking about what it was like growing up in the mountains and explaining how he got used to these natural rhythms of the outdoors. I think that when I have writer's block, the best thing for me to do is get outside and take a walk, so I appreciated him backing this up. According to MacFarlane, the outdoor environment he grew up in "wore away the usual boundaries of the self," leading to an obsession with the fundamental elements of rock, ice, water, and light.Yes, he found a way to bring that to writing. Writing With Nature Macfarlane got obsessed with the challenges of describing intangible phenomena, like light. He acknowledges that language will always fall short of capturing its true essence, but he learned to lean into metaphors to evoke the feeling and experience of light rather than simply describing it.This led him to a book on rivers, which got...
Published By: NoFilmSchool - 2 days ago