Field Notes--How to Simply Write Simply

Start with a fieldnote approach:

1. Find something to observe
2. Find a comfortable place to sit or stand
3. Write, without editing yourself, about what you observe and feel
4. Include all your senses in your observations. What do you: feel, smell, see, taste, hear, intuit?
5. Later, when you are back at your designated writing center, is the time to edit your writing.

I spend a lot of time in the wilderness. Each day I take time to hike close to home or camp. But I won't carry a notebook or notepad with me. I'll leave one on the house or cabin table, one by my bed, one on the kitchen counter, one in the car, even one in the outhouse at camp. But I won't carry one, no matter how small. My policy for my daily hikes is, if it does not fit in a pocket, I don't take it with me.

Oh, I know all about field notes. They are the notations those more diligent than me take to accurately chronicle a rare or unusual thing or event as it occurs in the field, getting as much of the description as possible at the spot of the sighting. Many field notes feature sketches or photographs with written detail. Some field notes include an opinion or interpretation by the observer. "Proper" field notes can be used as evidence and become part of history.

But I've come to live with the fact that I'm probably less than accurate when I write about a sighting or an event in my life. By the time I get back to paper and pen, sometimes hours, sometimes days, my emotions about the sighting have taken hold. I'm unable to distinguish the facts of the event from my emotionally-triggered imaginings.

Does this mean that much of my recalled life, while not total fiction, is liberally spiced up? Probably. My field notes are unreliable. But I would challenge that we are not accurate about anything we observe when we leave out the emotional impact the observation has on us.

So my suggestion is to allow your emotions to run wild and imagine BIG. Put it all to paper only when you've got a good story going; something way beyond the facts.

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." ~Albert Einstein