This month I’m participating in the A to Z Challenge, blogging every day of the month of April, except Sundays, on a topic from A to Z. I’m posting short-form topics meant to get you talking and sharing! Join the discussion in the comments.

Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

~Mary Oliver

Curiosity is a big part of creativity. To create, we must have something to say, and to have something to say, we must experience.

I tend to flip-flop between wanting large chunks of quiet time in which to focus solely on creating and consuming art versus wanting to be out in the world experiencing new things and going on adventures to strange places. I stay home and I make and I make and I make, and then I go out and see and see and see. I use the things I see and learn when I come back to making again.

I went to Iceland for a few days in March. It’s an amazing country. The natural scenery is so stunning it almost made me cry, no joke. When it comes to food, Icelanders like to put different flavors together to, as our food tour guide said, “make an explosion in your mouth.” It’s true! The food is adventurous and made with love. The people are proud and hard-working and love to tell stories from the history of Iceland. I came back with all sorts of yearnings for stories … I can’t wait to dig into some Norse myths and see what I can do with them. Did you know Odin and Freya were shape shifters? (So is my main character, Fannilea, in my upcoming novel The Flight of the White Crow. Maybe it’s a new theme? I rather like the philosophical implications for how we change as people as we grow and learn, and there is already a built in conflict as the shape shifter struggles to pin down her own identity, right?)

How and where do you practice wonder? What has caught your wonder most recently? How does nature figure into your wonder? What about certain themes? Do you find yourself returning to wonder at the same ideas over and over again?