Thursday, April 22, 2010

Write What You See by Hank Kellner

Write What You See by Hank Kellner

As bloggers, we all need inspiration for our writing. We run out of ideas, we hit walls, we give up. I know my personal blog has fallen off the wagon lately. But most of us, when our ink well is drying up, so to speak, we are wishing for the surge of creative and the enjoyment we have when writing with passion.

I checked out a book this week that I thought might help. Write What You See by Hank Kellner. A collection of black and white photographs accompanied with writing prompts. The book is intended to be used as a classroom instructional resource for teachers, maybe in creative writing, composition, or exposition. Sharp tweens would enjoy it, all high schoolers should try it and get something out of it.

But me?

I enjoyed the way it provoked my thoughts. It made me think beyond my own world and be innovative. It made me think about things I hadn't considered in a long while.

Maybe I could write about being scared, like in a terror movie kind of way.


Or about adventure and danger.


About what it will feel like, I mean what it will really feel like, to be old some day.


We all know that our visual world sparks our creativity and gets the gears of our mind turning. This book was a surprising find, one that was just the catalyst I needed about now.

Now if I could only figure out a faster way to clean diapers so that I had more time to write...

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you. Your readers can discover more about using photographs to inspire writing at my blog hankpix-englisheducation.blogspot.com.
Best regards,
Hank Kellner

Heather T said...

Wow, THIS is a surprise! Thanks for stopping by, Hank! I'm really enjoying your book and I'm happy I came across it!

Cheryl Miller Thurston said...

I'm pleased to say that we've received a really positive response from teachers regarding Hank's book. You can see sample pages at our web site, www.cottonwoodpress.com. (And you can also see a lot of other popular books about writing and the teaching of writing!

Heather said...

This does sound like a great book to inspire writing. I will have to check it out!