The Inspiration Question

Graffiti in Barcelona 

So when I was brainstorming blog ideas, my 14 year old overheard and suggested I post about inspiration and where it comes from, so here are my musings on Inspiration.

It’s a great question: where does inspiration come from? For me the answer is also a question. My writings (and so far this amounts to four completed novels, one novella, half a dozen part finished manuscripts, a dozen picture book texts and draw full of book ideas and plot outlines) all start with a question.

But what question you may ask? The answer is depends on the project, but they all have one thing in common, that it is an obscure question which springboards into a hypothesis to which the quest for an answer evolves into the story. 

Questions like…

What happens if Fairy Tales are real? 

What would happen if every time you sleep, your soul was transported into someone else’s body at the point of their death? 

How would you catch a kangaroo? 

What would the movie Elf be like, if the baby didn’t crawl into Santa’s sack, but The Grimm Reapers cloak? 

What would Rag n Bone men be like in space? 

What would happen to all the domesticated and incarcerated animals if human kind was to suddenly die out? 

If Heaven and Hell are real, are there more souls in the afterlife that have seen a flushing toilet than have not? 

The questions all come from my brain, but why I create such bizarre questions?

The answer is I feed my brain. Creativity is, in my opinion, a living thing and like all living things it needs to be fed. So I feed it a varied and eccentric diet. Often while I eat my lunch, I will watch a random documentary, it really doesn’t matter what, I just pick something a random from the BBC I Player Archive. This week I’ve watched a program about Tom Thumb, not the English Fairy Tale Charter but the nineteenth century international superstar with diminutive stature, Charles Stratton. An Attenborough led film about Jumbo the elephant and a documentary about architecture of animals. I also spend ten minutes a day reading the news, the more obscure the better, plus I read random and bizarre non-fiction books, harvesting a wealth of useless snippets of trivia. 

When I was kid, I would tell my parents facts like… 

The Romans had central heating. 

The Incas invented bulldozers (in spite of not inventing the wheel) they had a man powered machines for demolition purposes. 

The ancient Egyptians had a crude version of a television that was electrical, they used monkey and baboons as conductors, cue lots of dead primates. 

This lead to much ridicule from my parents, but I was fascinated by these bizarre facts that I found in genuine History text books.

This type of food for the brain set seeds in your creativity and eventually surface as a question, which leads to inspiration and a story. Well, at least for me.

So back to the original question: where does inspiration come from?

Answer: The questions of an inquisitive mind.

Art Installation in Shop window in Barcelona

Power of Stories and the & Responsibilities of Storytellers

Last week was an interesting week for me, it was a roller-coaster ride of acute sadness and unbridled joy.

It kicked off with a funeral of a friend and colleague, who passed away much too young. The funeral was poignant and beautiful, capturing the true essence of an inspiring, remarkable and lovely woman, who spoke to us all from beyond the grave, in her father’s voice as he read out a piece of her writing. The extract was about how, as a very young child, she immersed herself in stories (specifically Roald Dahl’s) using them to give her the strength and fortitude to battle very serious childhood disease, and how they shaped the woman she became. It was a deeply moving piece, not only as it’ll be the last of her words I’ll ever hear, but also because it goes straight to the heart of why stories and books for children are so important. 

Stories and books are more than just some words printed on paper that are bound between the covers. They have power. Power to empower the readers. Power to challenge and change the reader’s perspective. Power to increase intelligence and empathy. They can mould people, and when those people are young children, they can have an impact on how they develop, and therefore on whom they are and will grow to be.



With this, the people wielding the pen, keyboard and editors hats, have responsibility too. A responsibility to write the best books we can. A responsibility to write and publish varied and diverse books, so that every child can find the stories that give them strength. For some it’ll be Dahl, but for others it’ll be books with protagonists from other ethnicities, or disabled heroes and heroines, and so on. A responsibility to publish accessible books, one’s for challenged readers, ones for those who are gifted readers but aren’t quite ready for the Young Adult titles, and all the children in between. We have responsibility to ensure all children can have access to books, by keeping libraries open and retaining school librarians, and maybe publishing some books at smaller prices, like the WDB titles.

  

There have been a lot of discussions about celebrity authors being marketed so heavily and crowding the bookshelves in shops, pushing out other titles, and although I know publishing is also a business, it seems dangerous and irresponsible to restrict children’s choices in books. Books can help young minds in many ways, but not all minds are alike. Give children access and variety, then more children will become readers, and more reader means more book sales, and crucially more children finding their strength and themselves in the stories. 

My week was a roller coaster, it started with a funeral, it ended with a birth; a brand new nephew. Although this nephew is far from the first child to call me Aunt Sally (cue – Worzle Gummidge references), his arrival hammered the point home. Stories and books have power to shape young growing minds. So I, as a writer and occasional reviewer and bookseller, have a responsibility to ensure that there is enough accessible choice of books for those new minds to pick from. I will continue to write (and you know someday, even get published) and I will continue to champion diverse and varied books.

Write Here or Write Away? Where to Write?

Desks over the years, & writing shed with desk made by hubby out of scrap wood

I can write anywhere. I can write nowhere. It all depends on what I’m writing.

I love the notion of a writing shed, a heaven to retreat to and get lost in the world you are creating. For years I was quietly envious of author’s photos of their writing sheds, and dreamed of having one of my own. Then I got one. We moved into a new house which the agents described as ‘having potential’ and ‘scope of improvement’ and the opportunity of ‘putting your own stamp on’ - which I don’t have to tell you means, it a bit of a mess. But it was a mess with a shed. A shed that my husband kitted out with furniture he made from salvaged floorboards that were on their way to the skip. It’s a steampunk style writer’s paradise. It’s perfect. But I can’t write in it! I can edit it in. I can world build in it. But I can’t seem to write a first draft in it. It’s too close to the house and every increasing to-do-list. 

Writing shed, bookcase - made by hubby out of scrap wood

To write a first draft, I tend to need to be out of the house, so I write away. In a café (cliched I know).

I can write in libraries, or in the car waiting for the kids when they’re at the various after school clubs. But once the first draft is finished I can write anywhere. 

I can write here – at home, even writing through building work, through kids practising musical instruments in the same room. I can even write whilst cockroaches hiss at me (no lie, this week I was actually writing about whilst being hissed at my sons pet roaches!) But this is only when things are going well. If I do get a creative block, then I need new stimulus, and it back to writing away – to anywhere with coffee and heating. 

Where i was working this week, with cockroaches, geckos, turtles and a selection of bugs for company

So to write here or write away? For me it really depends on what I’m writing and where about on that wip journey I am.

Writing is better with Friends

Some things are better together. Coffee and cake. Cheese and wine. Laurel and Hardy. Ball gowns with baseball boots. Writing is definitely better with friends.I love writing, but it can be a lonely endeavour. When I started, it was a dirty little secret with hours sat by myself with my computer or notepad and pen. When I came ‘out’ of the writing closet, I was so excited by my WIP I’d talk about my book at length to anyone too polite to stop me, but no one really shared my enthusiasm. Then I joined a local critique group. 

 The Crit group led to me meeting other writers as passionate about their projects as I was about mine, and took me down the rabbit hole to discover the world of SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book writer and illustrators) and a wider community of writing pals. All of this helping to make my journey less daunting as I rode the highs and lows; celebrating the good times and helping one another through the not so good times.

Celebrating the launch of Nicki's Last Chance Hotel with Nick Cross and Amy Butler Greenfield

However it is easy to inadvertently find yourself back in the closet with the door firmly shut. Over the last few years, for a whole host of reasons (mostly resulting from us relocating) I found myself inching back towards the writing closet. At the same time, I experienced a drop in my confidence and creativity. So when I was writing my news years resolutions for 2018 and accidentally stumbled on my nearly identical resolutions for 2014, I decided I needed an attitude change. So I made the decision to re-prioritise my writing and get back in to the writing community. 

At Candy Gourlay's Launch of 'Is it a Mermaid' - Picture thanks to Candy.

I started the year attending the Big Honk (part of Golden Egg), making new friends and discovering many of my older writer friends were also eggs.

At The Big Honk with Addy Farmer and Philippa Francis

 I continued through the year attending friend’s books launches, and other writer events. And finally, for the first time since leaving my position on the SCBWI Conference committee back in 2014, I attended the SCBWI Winchester conference. 

WIth SCBWI Oxford Pal's Teri Terry and Paula Harrison  - Thanks to Paula for photo.

What I discovered by doing more of the social events and being surrounded by other writers, old friends and new ones, was that my creativity started flowing gain, and my confidence grew. Then at one social in Bath over the summer, sat around talking to half a dozen other writers I discovered that two of the other writers live within two miles of me. This was a break through as we started a new critique group, meeting monthly to critique a few chapter of each other’s WIP, and encouraging each other.

After watching Chitra Soundar's fabulous event at The Henley Literary Festival

After a decade of writing, I signed up to a writing course at the Oxford University Department for Further Learning, headed up by manuscript wrangler extraordinaire Nicky Browne; meeting more budding authors along with meeting in person folks I know from the Internet. 

Meeting face to face friends from the web - with Nina Oaken 

What I have discovered in my year of re-immersing myself in the writing community is that creativity is contagious, beginning surrounded by creative people really does make you more creative and productive, plus making it more FUN. All this cumulated in one great thing, for the first time in a long time I not only tinkered with editing an existing WIP but I wrote something new. I wrote it and FINISHED IT! And, with help from one of my best and closest writer friends, edited it and subbed it.

Making new friends with K L Kettle & Annaliese Avery 

So all in all, my message is this; WRITING IS BETTER WITH FRIENDS - so if you new to writing, go out now, and find you writery buddies! 

With Writery best buddies, Jo Wyton & Nicki Thornton at Nicki' book launch.