Wednesday, February 2, 2011

I Smell Something

I'm blessed or cursed, depending how you look at it, with a strong sense of smell.  My husband thinks that it's abnormal - he refers to it as bionic nose.  I swear that we have a gas leak at least once a winter and run around the house investigating the possible source.  (I still haven't found it and our home hasn't exploded so maybe I'm a bit over-sensitive.)

It reminds me that smells are an element in description that can pull us into the story.  There are times and places in our lives that are connected to us by certain scents.  Cherry yogurt takes me back to the 80's and dancing around my room to the Thompson Twins.  I fail to understand it, but each time I peal back the lid on cherry yogurt, that image flashes in my brain.  (I wish it would have been another song other than Hold Me Now.)  

Another item to add to my descriptive list when I'm creating a world.  To make it real, I must add the fragrance of roses, the stench of two day old bologna left in a hot car, the smell of freshly mowed grass and the faint trace of old-lady perfume that lingers on my grandmother's scarves.  (Hopefully these smells won't overlap in one scene.)   

3 comments:

  1. As an ex-smoker I barely have any olfactory awareness left, but I love writing about smells and I totally agree that it is a wonderful sensory descriptor. I also think it is skipped in a lot of writing, and I think that sucks.

    Followed you over here from Christina's. So I'm a new follower. Nice ta meet ya Laura!

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  2. *cries* I came over to click follow, but there's no button!

    Smells are a great way to describe the scene, but most people forget about it.

    I also have a shocking amount of memories connected to smell. In fact, if I see any school, I can remember how mine smelt.

    Weird.

    :-)

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  3. Two day old bologna? *snort* I have a strict no lunch meat in the car rule.

    I have the same thing with shampoo... Every once in a while I'll buy an old brand and be flooded with memories of days long gone.

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