When You’re Sad You Make a Rainbow–and Other Writing Secrets

My five-year-old told me yesterday, “When You’re Sad, You Make a Rainbow.” I didn’t quite get it until he pointed to his frown. My son knows one of the secrets of good writing–let your mind wander. When I asked him how he came up with the idea, I’d already assumed he’d heard it somewhere. Not so. “I made a frown and then I just thought, ‘It looks like a rainbow.’” In his free state of feeling his emotion, his mind wasn’t trying to talk him out of it or do anything with it. And so he happened upon a metaphor.[...]