A sense of winter

    

A SENSE OF PLACE

I have 150 000 different ways to describe the sea. That's because I live next to the sea and every         morning it challenges me to a duel - a duel of words. Honestly, I can't eat my Jungle Oats until I've     satisfied my inner critic that the words I've selected to describe the tint, the timbre and the tang of       the ocean are all suitably surprising and in every way, spot-on. And who, I might ask, gets to hear       these ozone-flecked odes? That's right..nobody. But I do it anyway because I'm addicted to trying       to describe places. A friend and fellow writer once told me that she writes because "I have stories       I want to tell". I then confessed that I write because "I have places I want to describe". 

I'm occasionally asked to coach at writing workshops. I almost always teach about how to evoke,       what is known in literary circles as, 'a sense of place'. Its not that hard if you remember to call upon   your 5 senses - touch, taste, hearing, vision and smell. A novice writer can leap from 'pretty               pathetic' to 'shows promise' after just 10 minutes of tender coaching in the art of                                   somathesthesia..that's 'bodily sensation' to you and I..learning to write for the senses. What did the     door feel like..rough, smooth, cold and foreboding? What did her hair smell like..cherries, cold           chips, wind-swept heather? 

A SENSE OF WINTER

Inspired by a little book called How To Be Chic In The Winter by Fiona Ferris, I decided to use the same technique - evoking the 5 senses - to make life both meaningful and delightful this winter. For myself. And then I had the thought that I shouldn't really keep all that good stuff away from you and..voila..Winterise went public and video #1 in the series was born - a sense of winter. Here's how I am interpreting a sense of winter in my home and life..I'd love to hear your ideas.