Be Aesthetic

I hear it all the time:

“You look like a writer.”

“That outfit is giving author vibes.”

“This room is cute!”

Honestly, they’re right.

The aesthetic exists; and it would be a lie to say I don’t try to capture it.

The baggy brown cardigan thrown over a yellow romper and sandals. The warm, scented candle glowing at midnight as you scrawl in a leatherbound journal with a dip pen. The Epic Trailer music playing in your ears as you write a battle scene with vigor. It is a pleasing, artistic vibe that will never grow old. I live for that.

I believe wholeheartedly that it’s easier to create beautiful worlds when you’re surrounded by beauty yourself.

Once, I created an entire race whilst standing at the edge of New Smyrna beach on Christmas Day with my arms crossed, staring off into the distance…for thirty minutes. The water lapped at my legs, the sand slowly swallowed my feet—and I was lost in another world, unaware of everything and everyone around me. That is, until my brother came up to me and asked if I was ok because I hadn’t stirred for half an hour.

The “writer of the group”, I am often found sitting apart from everyone else, a journal in my lap and five pencils stuck through my messy bun. “Oh look at our cute writer—sitting on the swing” ; “that’s why she’s the writer.” ; “I’m going to go join the author in a different world.”

Never lose that.

Stories live in every sunrise.

Beauty and wonder have always been the birthplace of stories.

Fill your life with experiences so you have beautiful things to write about.

Allow yourself one moment every day where you feel like the protagonist in your own life. It will give you more story ideas for your book characters than staring at a blinking cursor on a computer screen for five hours. It’s like…magic.

Go to the lake and sit at the bow of a boat. Relish the wind in your hair and the spray of the sea on your face and imagine yourself in another world.

Hike to the top of a cliff and stand at the edge with your face in the wind, basking in nature’s glory.

Stand in the middle of a field with your arms stretched wide and “photosynthesize” in the warm sun. Every time I do this I’m asked, “what are you doing?” and my response—every time—is, “I’m being aesthetic.”

It sounds silly. Really and truly, it does. I get it. You feel like people are gonna judge you. Like it’s silly to sit and “smell the roses”. But every beautiful scene you’ve ever written exists because you noticed one in the real world. And how are you ever going to have any luck immersing people in the aesthetic of your world if you don’t know how to do it in your own.

Don't hide the parts of yourself that make you a writer just because the people around you don't understand them. Don’t just blend in with the crowd and do what everyone else does because you’re afraid of showing that you’re an author. I know that you have stories in your head. It is the greatest burden to carry a story inside of you that cannot get out.

So, wear the cardigan.

Carry the book.

Stand in the field.

Smell the flowers.

Dance in the rain.

Write by candlelight.

Romanticize the ordinary.

Feel the sunset.

Be dramatic.

You can’t ask your readers to fall in love with your world…if you’ve forgotten how to fall in love with your own.

You’re a writer.

Be aesthetic.