Sometimes, writing just exists. It captures a moment—passing, quiet—and asks us to simply be there. This is what I was thinking about when I couldn’t sleep last night. Not all writing has to be profound or jarring. There’s meaning in the mundane, just as there is in life.
A morning sitting on the couch sipping coffee by the fireplace while my partner takes the kid to school is as important to my story as any other part of my day or week or life. Because it still tells you who I am. That I drink coffee to wake up (coffee people are very different than tea people). That I don’t drive Grayson to school, which could mean I’m lazy or uncomfortable. Or perhaps I just prefer the ten minutes at home alone with Gus while Jason prefers blasting Taking Back Sunday with our 9-year-old at 7:30 in the morning.
Even the fireplace tells a story: it’s cold now, or we live somewhere cold. These little details might seem insignificant, but they ground us. They’re as essential to storytelling as any big event or revelation.
It's these little things - how someone holds a mug, the quiet moments by a fireplace - that allow readers to feel like they truly know a character, or even the writer themselves. Where they leave their shoes when they get home. What time of day they take a shower. How quickly they brush their teeth. If they eat all their food together or in separate, orderly fashions. Do they get pimples on their ass? Do they shave their arms? How often do they stretch? What do they carry in their pockets? Who do they talk to when they’re alone? What do they think about just before bed?
Next time you write, try observing these little moments in your life or your character’s. What do they reveal? Who does that person become when they’re suddenly eating their food all together or when they switch their yoga practice to every night before bed?
Not every scene has to change the world. Not every moment needs to be chaotic or profound. But these small details reveal who we are - and who our characters are. Writing them teaches us what truly matters, what people notice, and what they value. In focusing on the small things, we uncover the big things. And perhaps even more importantly, we discover a quiet, connected joy.
There's something deeply comforting in these shared, everyday observations. The small, steady details of our lives ground us, adding weight to the extraordinary and softness to the mundane. We've all brushed our teeth, sipped our favorite drink, or sat in silence thinking about life's quiet moments. In these overlaps, we see ourselves in others - and find the threads that tie us together.
And just like all of our writing, it won’t all stick around for the final draft. But that’s okay. It’s in these fragments of ordinary life that we see the whole picture. We learn who our characters are and that informs the rest of our work. These words are just as important as the ones that last.
I'm not saying it's easy. Writing these small, ordinary things takes vulnerability. It's challenging to slow down, to step outside of our own heads, and to trust that fostering this relatability for our readers is what truly matters. It often feels easier to dismiss the small things as insignificant, to believe they won't resonate - but they do. They are the tiny threads that weave a fuller, more authentic story.
So I guess what I learned last night, while rolling around in bed, flip flopping, squeezing the stuffed Target dog my brother got me when I was 8 years old… is don’t be afraid to linger in the quiet moments. Write the mundane, the everyday. Let them stand as they are: small pieces of a larger truth.