Photo by Corey Leopold - everystockphoto
I’m back from the southern snow. Imagine blizzards howling over the steppes, livestock frozen solid overnight, ice-encrusted lakes, people in cars being trapped overnight by huge snowdrifts and not knowing if they might be rescued before it’s too late. Imagine schussing down the ski slopes at Cardrona or Whakapapa ski fields, learning how to snowboard on virgin powder, hot chocolate with marshmallow warming the body and the soul at night, cozying up to your sweetheart in front of a log fire. Imagine it. I did, because my holiday was nothing like that. Cold and wet weather but no snow. Some weak sunshine and gorgeously blue skies showed up but the image of a traditional “European” winter just did not eventuate. That’s where writers have to start reaching out for the creative strand just beyond our fingertips. We must project ourselves beyond the immediate and beyond the knowable to places that may exist only as a whisper in our mind.
Here’s a challenge to my Singapore friends and fellow writers. Write what you don’t know. Write about beyond the horizon and over the sea.
