{"id":33162,"date":"2016-09-15T06:30:52","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T18:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=33162"},"modified":"2016-09-27T21:42:08","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T08:42:08","slug":"listening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/09\/15\/listening\/","title":{"rendered":"Listening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"thornspell_handwritten-notes\"<\/a>As a writer, I’m an observer — I think<\/em> that goes without saying. In fact, that’s almost a blog post in itself, innit: whether it’s possible to be a writer and not<\/em> be an observer of people, life, the universe in all its awe and wonder, and pretty much everything, really…<\/p>\n

However, today I’m going to talk about being a listener<\/em> as well. Part of it goes hand in hand with being an observer: listening to the wind, the way it talks through the trees and walks, whispering, through the long grass, and the way the trees and the grass respond with their myriad voices…<\/p>\n

\"Gannet,<\/a>

The sounds of the seabirds<\/p><\/div>\n

Listening, too, to the infinite, unceasing voice of the ocean, and the sounds of the seabirds, and the cries of the kids on the beach and in the nearby\u00a0 playground. Listening to the radio and all the different voices and stories, and not just the political stories: the love and loss and triumph stories, the sports tales and the foodie anecdotes.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, and I’m an eavesdropper, as well: a shameless<\/em> eavesdropper. I listen to discussions on buses and in cafes, and snatches of conversation overheard as I walk one way along the street and the talkers head in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

\"Lewis<\/a>

Pressing pause on silence…<\/p><\/div>\n

Sometimes, too, I press pause on silence — way out in the hills; or amidst the quiet of a weekday suburb, around midmorning; or walking through an old graveyard: just stop, and listen, and decide\u00a0 whether it’s actually silence after all, and what sounds are really there all along, if you only pay attention.<\/p>\n

And because I’m a listener, I also listen to music, sometimes even when I’m writing depending on my mood and that of the material. You won’t see me with my earbuds in, though, because otherwise I’d be shutting out all the other signals — and listening<\/em>, dear readers, is very much a writer’s business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a writer, I’m an observer — I think that goes without saying. In fact, that’s almost a blog post in itself, innit: whether it’s possible to be a writer and not be an observer of people, life, the universe in all its awe and wonder, and pretty much everything, really… However, today I’m going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-writing","category-funstuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33162"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33301,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33162\/revisions\/33301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}