Creativity Boosts: Object Writing

23rd December 2021

During lockdown I tried to embed some positive creative habits into my life.

As time slowed and days blurred, I sought to discover short activities to inject into a daily morning routine, built around the idea that - it isn’t big occasional changes that evolve your life - it’s the little things, daily.

One of the most transformational habits for me took the grand total of ten minutes a day.

It’s transformed me as a writer, lyricist, and my window on the world.

Let me introduce you to the wonder which is object writing.

The idea behind object writing is to set a ten minute timer, focus on a particular object - either in real life or in your mind’s eye - and write a sensual description of it.

By sensual I mean - evoking as many senses as you can. This includes the usual five senses, but also the kinesthetic sense (the feeling of movement), or perhaps most importantly, the soul sense, as I call it (how something deeply moved you).

I’ve found it quite remarkable how sensual descriptions have the ability to place a reader right in a moment with you and to bring writing to life.

You’d think that the time limit would add overwhelming pressure - but I’ve discovered it’s quite the opposite. Not overthinking things has been a breakthrough to writing golden content, for me.

Knowing it’s only a ten minute task also makes it much easier to show up.

I’ll usually sit down, look around the room or out of the window to identify an object, set the timer with no preconceived ideas - or at most I might have mentally caught the tail of the first line or two - and I’m off.

When the alarm sounds, finish the sentence I’m on and don’t look back!

It’s not supposed to be a route to creating productive work - it’s merely to get the creative juices flowing and keep a daily practice going with writing.

Ironically, despite the blasé approach, I’ve been shocked at a pretty consistent high quality as I’ve delved through old entires for this blog. Another reminder that little and often is more important than a lot, sometimes.

Here are some object writing picks from my lockdown creative bubble…

Glass Bottle

What is fascinating to me is, before this glass bottle in front of me took its shape, it was sand.

How the heck did we work out how to turn sand into this ethereal transparent material that I pull to my lips multiple times a day?

The glass has a misty coat on as the cool water inside condenses in the warm room I'm sat in. Lines form in the clouded surface as drips gather and reach down the bottle's edges. Tiny bubbles are attached to the inner walls like constellations in the sky. I wonder how they managed to find something to grab onto, like mussels hanging onto sea rocks, yet every bubble seems to have found the exact place it was meant to be.

As I type, the vibrations coming from the movement in my fingers is tickling the water in the bottle. It looks like it's having a right ol' belly laugh at what I'm doing. Although, like a storm over a deep lake, the surface is chaotic, while the calm depths remain untouched as the sleeping bubbles are none-the-wiser about what's going on above.

Edging in for a closer look, my reflection emerges on the curve of the bottle. My fingers look like undercooked sausages as I view them through the transparent glass. They turn yellow as I press them against the cool bottle. Now my left hand is wet.

Okay, it's been long enough to stare at this gorgeously tempting bottle of water. I'm going in for the kiss.

Sweet satisfaction. Cool water is currently diving down my throat and landing in the warmth of my insides. I feel it's cold hands massaging the edges of my stomach. As I gulped the calming combination of water and air, bubbling into my ear drums as I turned the bottle world upside down, made the whole experience perfectly satisfying.

I think this is the only way to drink water: gratefully.

Globe

Have you ever stood in front of a mirror, while another mirror is behind you? Suddenly you are standing in a queue, of yourself. Many hundreds of you trail into the distance until the eye can no longer make out your features. Move your arm, and your clones follow in a Mexican-wave motion. Jump, and you follow. What a way to never feel alone!

I see the same illusion in globes. How we, poised somewhere on this spinning rock, display a version of ourselves in the walls of our homes. As a child, I would watch as the familiar boot-like shape of my country, Great Britain, would spiral around the top of the sphere. Upon closer inspection, my eyes would veer to the bottom right side of the boot, zooming into the patch of land where I was sat in my pyjamas at that moment, inspecting the globe. Just like the infinite wall of mirrors.

I would twist the globe with my eyes closed, pointing my finger at somewhere I'd dream to one day travel. I'd feel the circular shape slow as my fingertips pressed against its edges. After landing in the sea a few times, I'd begin again, prying my finger off the printed name of somewhere exotic. Sometimes, globes would show the names of capital cities. My childish sponge-mind would take in all stimuli, quietly mouthing the sounds of the foreign words, imagining the foreign worlds which unfolded there. The world was huge for me back then, even as I held the globe in my hands.

At that age, I'd only known a western world. The furthest I had been, was the neighbouring country - France. My summer holidays consisted of trips to the nearest beach - for me, a tremendous trek - of two car-sick hours in the backseat of a stuffy car. Only my imagination could carry me to the banks of the river amazon, or the foothills of the Himalayas, or the deserts of Egypt. I would trust the images I was shown, so far from a world I had known. As I grew, and touched my toes to the white sand of Anguilla, or the red sand of the dead sea - something magical was lost - my world had shrunk, like the unknowing depth of my imagination.

Cardboard Box

To a child, a cardboard box has infinite possibilities. It becomes a home, a vehicle, a friend - a building block for the imagination.

To my three year old self, my two year old brother and four year old cousin, our cardboard boxes were pirate ships.

We sat inside them, with soft felt pirate hats on our heads, branded with a skull and crossbones. My cousin was wearing a miniature leather waistcoat, my brother held a floppy plastic machete, and I had a bandana tied around my neck. We smiled through the gaps in our milk teeth. Around us, the perfectly manicured green lawn became a raging stormy sea, on which our cardboard ships sailed.

The boxes were large enough that they could fit two of our small bodies. My brother and cousin occupied one, while me - the only girl, as I was so often accustomed to as a child - had my very own special vessel. I remember a potent moment. We were drinking something sugary and bright-coloured, as us 90s kids grew up on. I placed the drink inside the box with me, and it spilt. My once firm, impenetrable boat was sinking fast. The hard floor turned from beige to dark brown and softened, like my imaginary pirate life, into the reality of a toddler's situation. I forgot about being a pirate, and my focus shifted to: am I going to get told off?

I remember the moment clearly, because the way my three-year-old self dealt with it, was to edge my knobbly knees to the opposite corner of the box and pretend nothing had happened. After all, only I could see the contents of the box. Everyone else was none-the-wiser. Moments later, my mum emerged with a disposable camera, widening her smile from behind its lens as she encouraged us to mirror her. And there I was captured forever, pinned the outer corner of the box by an anxious thought, as the boys unknowingly played.

Funny how the whole situation felt like such a big deal back then, and funnier still how the photographic evidence, which has encouraged my senses to return to that moment every time I see it, solidified the memory. Even now, 23 years later, I return as if it was happening now. The sky is endlessly blue and the sun is so bright, even my mind's eye is squinting. There's an ignorant optimism, characteristic of the year 1997 in a privileged western household - where soda pop was okay, e-numbers in vibrantly neon food was normal, and fun comes from toys and plastic goodies.

Simultaneously, I feel a nostalgia for a more simple life, naive of the truths I know now, believing in a fictitious world I was served. And also, an unshakable fury in me, that wants to tell my three year old, that I was not wrong for knowing even then, that life was supposed to be much more sacred. Yet, the cardboard box imagination is a catapulted me into a world of creativity, which has become my life-long love affair ever since.

Post-it Note

I've become known by my use of post it notes. Honestly, it's become a personality trait of mine. A room isn't quite my own if I haven't pasted a few ideas, quotes or reminders around me. Even now, as I write this entry, post it notes spanning spectrum shades of colour - from pastel pink, cool and delicate blue, a lemon-sorbet yellow and bold and urgent orange - decorate most vertical surfaces around me. There's the walls, of course, but also the box holding my computer screen, the computer screen itself. For lack of space, the post-its move to a horizontal position, pasted onto my table, and even around the edges of the desk.

I'm getting used to the sudden sound of peeling as eventually the post-its succumb to gravity and float to the ground like a feather zig-zagging through the sky. Except, instead of a delicate and angelic landing, the post it is usually found attached to strands of hair and dust, and I usually weigh up whether that idea was worthwhile anyway...

I suppose my affiliation for post-it notes is founded in my love for ideas. Externalising them so they no longer swim through the depths my ocean mind, and instead, float, ever remindingly, on the surface. Once I feel the idea has grown legs, once the quote has served it's time, the post-its crunch in my hand, satisfying like an autumn leaf, and hurtle towards the bin in the corner of the room. My youthful basketball practice helped me hone the skill of bouncing the paper ball off the wall, and into the trash. Even now, my bin bursts with colour as old ideas raise their heads in a saturated display. Yep, a bin drawing attention to itself.

Behind me, is a orange stain where a giant post-it note once communicated something to me, only to have an unexpected leak drip directly through it, stripping it of its pigment, and painting the wall forever the shade of off-orange you might expect from a strong English breakfast tea. I guess not everything wants to be remembered….

Tyre Swing

The smell of rubber permeates the air as the setting August sun warms the surface of the tyre swing I'm lazing in. A cool evening relief sets in after a blazing day, which turned the grass from green to dusty yellow as the english meadows changed to desert in the heat of the summer. Even now, I'm thankful for the shade of the grand oak tree, who stands alone in the centre of an otherwise isolated field. I rock back and forth gently as I close my eyes and tilt my head back. The world is upside down and my brain is throbbing in my mouth - but the small child-like pleasure is worth the slight discomfort. I pull forward on the straw-like rope between my fingers, rising my body like a bubble to the surface of the water. The sky seems to have changed colour while I was in my own world. Pastel pinks emerge through the orange hue, reaching all the way to blue the further I let my line of sight lift.

As I do, an unexpected sight meets my eyes. Directly above the branch where the swing is attached, is a big, buzzling brawl of bees. Thousands of them. Many of them sit, poised still on the branch, as a few others hover close by. Suddenly, my care-free swinging has become incredibly focused. It's funny how awareness can change its direction: now all I can hear is the increasingly amplified hum of the hive. Before, my ears only picked up the distant, high-pitched crickets, rustling leaves as the summer breeze caressed the tree, and the quiet creaking of the rope swing.

Noticing my every move, and shifting in a silent slow motion, I stretch my legs from the tyre until I feel the ground beneath my toes. Like a stealthy burglar, I hop gently from the swing, and sprint across the field as if my life depended on it, imagining a swarm of bees following me - only to find myself alone in the summer silence again.

Rainy Window

I followed the raindrop as it slithered horizontally across the car window. The glass, cold on my fingertips, was left with my personal prints in momentary patterns across the pane. A chaotic dance, the droplets would merge and detach again. If I looked close enough, I could see my reflection in the water as the rain clung to the moving car window.

Rain has always been special to me. I’ve never understood how its presence causes so many to label a day ‘miserable’, or ‘terrible’. I usually fight the urge within me to run underneath it with my arms outstretched and my tongue wide, tasting it’s familiar fragrant flavour. The taste of a cloud.

I’ve wondered throughout my life about how I can possibly smell rain before it arrives. The earthy, moist, life-filled scent. It smells like promise. My ability to predict the rain due to its smell evokes something ancient in me. A bone memory: a knowing encoded in my DNA.

Perhaps that’s what I am seeing in my tiny reflection in the droplet of a moving vehicle. My own essence. Life itself. For water is who I am… 70% of it anyway. Like rain on the window, I am merely a dancing droplet.

It takes me back to the pitter-patter of rain on the roof of my camper van Snail, under which Simone and I would hibernate on stormy nights. The percussive tin sounds would lull us to sleep as we huddled together under the covers. Nothing much is cosier to me than being inside as I watch the clouds release through my window. As I do on this winter day.

-

Since trying out object writing, I found the more I wrote, the more I loved to write, and I surfed a vibrant upward spiral. When I went through dry patches and stopped writing, I forgot I could write, and stopped identifying with being a writer.

I think the crux with object writing, and the key with any positive habit, is just to consistently show up. That’s it. It doesn’t particularly matter what you write - just write.

All photos are my own.