Sense of Place

Sorry to have to miss a week of posting, but I have been busy hiking and skiing around Idaho for the past week. In the state of peace that being out there in the mountains brought me, writing a new blog entry slipped my mind, making interesting material for this week's writing. The impact of the rural town of Sun Valley on my mental state, with its gentle, sloping hills and mountains, now covered in snow for the entry into winter, provides an interesting case study for the power of place on the individual, well-known prime material for creative writing. It is only natural that our physical environments such play such a central role in our mentalities, as they define our every activity and interaction with others, just as spending time in Sun Valley allows for exploration of nature and relative seclusion from the hustle and bustle of my normal life in Seattle. It is interesting but perhaps predictable that places we only spend limited time, for example Sun Valley in my case, should create far more distinct impressions for us than the places we live and go about our usual business. It is often in noting the differences between the places we visit and the place we live that we are able to most easily describe such places, making clear the value of common writing exercises that might ask one to describe in detail their home surroundings whether in prose or poetry, and engage in far more critical examination of one's day-to-day setting. This is an especially good exercise, and a great example of why writing is so special, as it allows for both good craft practice and some amount of personal benefit/increase in appreciation of one's home. Still, examining in writing the places one does not live is frequently the most engaging, something I typically seek to do every time I travel internationally. I find that it not only increases my appreciation for those places abroad I visit, but makes for great practice and a somewhat artistic record of such places. Thus, exploring real-world settings through writing allows for both fantastic craft and personal benefit, and isn't that what creative writing should be all about?