Spring into Writing

      My environmental literature class hosted a guest speaker on October 26, 2015. Tom Springer, the author of Looking for Hickories, is an amazing environmental and nature writer and he so graciously visited our class to talk about writing.

      One thing Springer talked about was what he called essay building blocks. The first building block is personal experience. A writer needs to have a personal experience that they feel passionate about so his/her writing is enhanced with emotions. A good writer has many personal experiences worth writing about. The second building block that Springer described is having expert information. Once a writer describes a personal experience, then it is time for the author to do some research on what he/she wrote about. Adding expert information to personal experiences adds more context to a piece of writing. The last building block is having wisdom synthesis. Springer describes this as helping readers view your side of the argument by pulling the other two building blocks together. The wisdom synthesis brings everything together and sums everything up. If a person wants to be a great writer, these building blocks are essential to add into writing.

Tom Springer's book Looking for Hickories

 

      Springer also talked about other aspects of good writing. One thing he said to the class that interested me was to “look at the wonder of things”. He was speaking about the wonder of nature. How often do people have their noses glued to their cell phone or other electronic devices? Springer suggested that people need to look up and observe the wonders of nature that we are enveloped in each and every day. This will allow writers to have new personal experiences in nature to write about. Springer does an amazing job of turning the ordinary into extraordinary in his book Looking for Hickories. He is able to do this because he observes the wonders of nature and creates a personal experience to go along with it.

      Springer also told us to find a “story beneath a story.” Many stories usually have stories beneath that goes along with the original story. Writers need to look beneath the surface of something in order to write about a different perspective that is interesting and still valuable. In order to be a great and unique writer that goes outside the original boundaries, writers need to look at something and see something more in which they can expand on. This is one particular region in which I struggle in. I do not look beneath the surface of objects or ideas, but I know that in order to be a great writer, instead of a good writer, I need to look deeper into things

      Tom Springer is an amazing writer and I was very blessed to have listened to him speak to us about writing. His advices about the essay writing blocks, looking at the wonder of things in nature, and finding a story within a story were all great pieces of advice that I hope to incorporate into my writing.