What's In An Albatross?

A few disclaimers about this post: First, this is not an anatomy lesson, and no harm has or will come to any birds whatsoever in the making of this piece. Secondly, this is not intended to be used in any way that would harm an albatross or any other of our fine avian friends. Lastly, just go with the whole albatross discussion, and see what it's actually about.

Sometimes, when a fellow writer feels bogged down in their writing and can't get themselves into a good space to be creative, I offer them the albatross challenge. In short, start writing about an albatross. Start describing it through the senses, but really don't be afraid to investigate and go deep into its particular smell or the feeling of its coarse, thick feathers. (Describing how it tastes is up to your imagination - please do not eat an albatross just to help your descriptive process). 

Now, this might seem like a simple task, but the challenge is to take it further. What does the voice of the albatross sound like? Not its call across the waters, but if it could talk, what would it sound like? Would it have a British accent? Would it use a lot of slang? What would it think about how people sounded with their smaller throats and beaks? Start challenging yourself to think of it as a unique entity, and how that might stand apart from what we typically think about these birds. Since there's no right or wrong to this exercise, you have the right to play around with it. Have fun with the exercise. Give your albatross a name - it should probably be Steve but that's your call. Then get to know Steve.

At this point, your mind should be travelling away from what we think about the typical albatross, which in fairness, is probably not very well known anyway. At this point, you can write down the secret world of these birds, their culture and habits, the immense efforts they take to make sure nobody ever finds out how they can speak English (and probably many other languages), and the heavy burden they carry in concealing everything about their special ways. God forbid if any human accidentally stumbled upon the secret kingdom of the albatross homeland. Would the birds rise up? Finally let the truth be told? Come out and demand a place amongst civilized society?

As you can tell, this exercise has very little to do with the fine albatross. This is merely a deep dive into committing yourself to writing about whatever circulates through your brain, and exploring it without the confines of annoying things like reality. Whenever we are hung up with our writing, it's usually because we have hit some kind of perceived boundary and do not have a good way to get through it. Usually the boundary is nothing more than some annoying obstacle that has no power over us, but we focus on it rather than the project of writing. So when these obstacles appear, your only responsibility is to find a way to break yourself from known concepts and explore the unknown spaces. And a good way to do that is with an albatross.

BTW - I chose an albatross for this example because it was alphabetically the first one I could think of. Your bird may vary.