“Me, Myself, and My Five Senses”
I spend a lot of time inside my head. This is something that’s always been true about me. As a kid, one of my favourite pastimes was playing pretend, letting my imagination run loose and turning my ideas into dramatic plays for my stuffed animals to star in or for my friends and I to adopt for the afternoon. Today we are princesses and Pokémon trainers—both, at the same time. Tomorrow we’ll be spies, detectives, dragons on a mission. I could spend hours outside with a bouncy ball, just bouncing it up and down the street while I spun stories inside my head.
Now as an author, many of my days are much of the same, though the rhythm of the bouncy ball has turned into the tapping of keys on my computer. And while I can say that letting my imagination run loose and turning my ideas into dramatic scenarios for my characters to star in is still one of my favourite things to do, there are times when being in my head feels more tumultuous than not. When the feeling of stuckness seeps in and spirals into a state of overthinking and then overthinking the overthinking (as one does), I begin to feel more like I’m in the passenger seat of my own mind than the one behind the wheel.
Something I’ve been trying to do lately is to spend a little less time in my head and a little more time in my body. One of the ways I’ve been doing this is pausing to make note of my five senses in real time. I’ll ask myself, what do I see? A chunky mug, red spines on the bookshelf. Hear? Construction outside my window. Smell? Leeks in the pan, my daughter’s baby scent. Taste? Water, cold and refreshing. Feel? The couch beneath me, holding me up. It brings me back to the moment in a tangible way that reminds me that I’m not actually falling no matter how far my mental spiral seems to go. I’m simply right here.
Curiously, the senses have made an appearance as key details in my most recent young adult novels. The Space between Here & Now follows the story of a teenage girl who has a rare condition that causes her to travel back in time to her memories when she smells a scent linked to them. And in my upcoming book Meet Me at Blue Hour, memories are erased through sounds collected on a mix tape.
While I didn’t necessarily or purposefully plan to write these novels centering the senses, I found that’s where my ideas naturally took me. And in writing these stories, I found something else: leaning into the senses is great for worldbuilding! There’s nothing that makes a setting feel more alive than being able to vividly see what your characters see, hear what they hear, taste what they taste. I recall receiving this writing tip from an author friend of mine years ago, but as someone who often gravitates toward scenes with two talking heads in a description-less room, I feel like I needed to write these stories with the senses as a focal point to truly grasp my own style with it.
Now, no matter what I write, I find this exercise helps ground me in the reality of the story, just like how it grounds me in the reality of my own life. So whenever I’m feeling stuck in my head or stuck in the words, I go back to the senses. I take a breath. I plant my feet on the ground. And I remember that I’m here.
Publishing April 1st, 2025 by Quill Tree Books
About the Book: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets Past Lives in this gripping, emotional story of two childhood friends navigating the fallout of one erasing their memory of the other, from acclaimed author Sarah Suk.
Seventeen-year-old Yena Bae is spending the summer in Busan, South Korea, working at her mom’s memory-erasing clinic. She feels lost and disconnected from people, something she’s felt ever since her best friend, Lucas, moved away four years ago without a word, leaving her in limbo.
Eighteen-year-old Lucas Pak is also in Busan for the summer, visiting his grandpa, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. But he isn’t just here for a regular visit—he’s determined to get his beloved grandpa into the new study running at the clinic, a trial program seeking to restore lost memories.
When Yena runs into Lucas again, she’s shocked to see him and even more shocked to discover that he doesn’t remember a thing about her. He’s completely erased her from his memories, and she has no idea why.
As the two reconnect, they unravel the mystery and heartache of what happened between them all those years ago—and must now reckon with whether they can forge a new beginning together.
About the Author: Sarah Suk (pronounced like soup with a K) lives in Vancouver, Canada, where she writes stories and admires mountains. She is the author of young adult novels Made in Korea and The Space between Here & Now, as well as the co-writer of John Cho’s middle grade novel Troublemaker. When she’s not writing, you can find her hanging out by the water, taking film photos, or eating a bowl of bingsu. You can visit Sarah online at sarahsuk.com and on Twitter and Instagram @_sarahsuk.
Thank you, Sarah, for this writing exercise to bring our writing to life!
