If I turn my legs upside down they appear slim because all the loose stuff falls down to my groin and has a meeting with my hips. Then I flex my feet and point them toward the ceiling, an air-stiletto arch, as if I'm wearing nine-inch heels. Ordinarily, I do this while on my back. Early in the morning before my husband wakes up.

Once in awhile he catches me at it. He adjusts his head for vision and awareness. He sees toes-on-ceiling shadows. Realizing that they are my feet, he again closes his eyes. I wait for it, since his comment will not be about why I am doing this, but rather, why I enjoy doing it. In what I assume to be a rhetorical statement, he looks at me and quietly says "Playing with your feet?"

I have no answer to that, but I do know that exploration is part of the human condition. I no longer wear nine-inch or any-inch heels, since many years of island living and barefoot walking on sandy beaches convinced me that shoes are superfluous. I write barefoot. In the winter, such as it is here in the tropics, I might throw on a pair of nubby socks, but only to give my toes something to play with. Something to explore.

Exploration continues daily in every aspect of a writer's life and a useful tool that few of us ever use is observation. Why? Does observation lead to conflict and is that something we avoid? As a writer, it is important to view the details of conflict to be able to write the details of characters. Embrace the details.

Study the arcane, the obscure. More importantly study the ordinary, the everyday. Consider two individuals who gained great success by looking with re-skewed bias at universally recognized items. They gave us renewed interest in the ordinary. Georgia O'Keeffe elevated a single poppy to an icon. Judith Guest broke open the egos of Ordinary People as if they were contained in a Cracker Jack box and the prize, simply enough, became understanding of the human condition. Francine Prose wrote in Blue Angel about desire and ennui in a college instructor's life and this character's decline by being blind to his conflict.

To write with a deft mind requires an understanding of other minds. Find what a character wants and you will write about what drives that character. Then create impedance. Block that character from obtaining a stated goal. The conflict becomes interesting. The story becomes interesting. When observing humanity, study the conflicted. Attach those ideas to your story and watch your characters grow.

Learn to recognize three styles of conflict: internal, external (protagonist against antagonist), and external against forces unknown or unrecognized (or society and/or the environment) and use those conflicts to add bones, muscle, and flesh to your stories. Regarded as a classic story of internal conflict, Hamlet's plight-his mental frenzy-drove him to an abyss while contemplating revenge for his father's murder. In The Old Man and the Sea, the ocean and a redeeming fish team up as forces of nature to challenge the soul and strength of Ernest Miller Hemingway's fisherman. Is the goal obtainable? Is it worth it, moreover, why is it worth it?