Pam Houston on developing a practice of noticing:
The honest answer is I don’t spend a lot of time evaluating [small things that catch my attention] because I think that’s counterproductive to the process. The process is really about collection and having them at my disposal if I need them later.
And then using those “glimmers” when she writes:
How it usually works is that I just start writing something and I don’t worry about it. I don’t worry about whether it’s an essay or a story. I’m usually just playing a shell game with glimmers, and then they sort of fall into connection to each other.