INSPIRATION. WHERE DO YOU FIND YOURS?

Inspiration is a funny old thing. It’s very personal for a start. Does a glorious view inspire you with ideas? Or a wall with a thought provoking picture on it? Maybe you need an empty, silent, house with no interruptions? Music in the background? Coffee and chocolate on tap? Does that intriguing sentence or two of a conversation you over heard in the supermarket, ‘She’s only gone and run off with her toy boy. Goodness only knows what the headmaster will say’ get your mind racing with Who? What? Where? When? How? All those classic journalism questions to find the story behind the news item. Do you find story prompts in the latest writing magazine, helpful?  Do scenes and plots spin into your head as you people watch on your commute to work? Maybe you like going on a retreat like Rae wrote about last week? 

Photographs can sometimes lead one into a story.

For instance these colourful shoes. Who would wear boots likes this? Where would they walk? Were they waterproof or did they leak? They look to be a small size - children’s boots or a petite lady with tiny feet? But however you find your  inspiration you do need that ‘lightbulb moment’ in the beginning when you sense the idea has the legs for a novel rather than a short story.

Writing a novel is not a quick process and sometimes at the halfway point through the first draft, additional inspiration is needed to keep the story on line. Maybe a long soak in the bath with a glass of wine relaxes the left side of your brain and the ideas flood in inspiring you to carry on with the story.

I know some writers who say they have so many ideas for books they’ll never have time to write them all. Me - well, I’m not like that. Ideas do come to me out of the blue but not always when I need them. And definitely not fully formed. But I do write them down in a notebook ready to flip through when I’m desperate. Sitting in front of a blank screen with no idea what to write to move the story forward can be soul destroying. Over the years I’ve tried to find and master some fail safe ways of finding inspiration when I need to call up the muse. 

My stories are usually set in either Devon or France, so I choose my setting and then write down the basics of my main female character. Name, age, marital status, family and job. Then I think of a theme i.e.  Divided loyalties; Sibling rivalry; Dunkirk spirit; I then give my heroine a problem - sibling rivalry could be devastating news that drives a seemingly permanent wedge between the heroine and her brother/sister.  

In theory inspiration and ideas are everywhere but writers need to be open to their presence and ready to recognise which idea has the real legs to be expanded into a novel. Do ideas come to you in dreams? Do you sit in front of the computer with a fully formed character and story in mind? Do you sit scribbling doodles and words hoping that something will come to you. We’d love to hear what inspires you and your writing.