Taking pictures with words

This piece of the web is me attempting to find my voice. So far it eludes me.

Like a lot of mediocre writers my writing frequently gets bogged down in things that just don’t matter. I’ll turn out paragraphs of exhaustive description to try and paint the scene as I saw it, forgetting that what matters is what is felt. This makes my writing dry. I don’t want to be dry.

Re-framing my writing as written photography is an attempt to unburden myself of the urge to document everything and instead focus only on what belongs in the frame, so to speak. By creating pictures in prose I hope to focus my writing on the sturdier archetypes that are the real substance of experience.

A walk between two Wednesdays was a first attempt at one of these ‘vignettes’, if you will – it captures how I felt having come to the end of a life-altering, months-long journey. It doesn’t say much about the journey itself – only about the moment, the picture – leaving more unsaid than said, inviting questions. I like that. Doubtless it’s not a cure-all for trite or prosaic writing, I’m sure I’ll muster much more of that but so far I like the effect and will continue to experiment with capturing and sharing moments in this way.