The first of the workshops provided by Isabel Costello as part of my recent retreat was about Inspiration.
As a writer, I'm often asked "Where do you get your ideas from?" My stock answer is usually "Everywhere!" Let me give you a few examples...
i) The time we found a bird carcass in our chimney, which sparked the idea for a horror short about a young chimney sweep who perished.
ii) The transparent acrylic guitar spotted in a music shop window, which gave me a title; The Glass Guitar.
iii) The tradition Sardinians used to have of making a mourning blanket, which became a second-placed-in-a-competition story.
You get the idea.
Well, we (the retreatees) were asked how we would define 'inspiration'. My own definition was - 'the thing, seen or heard, which sparks the idea for a story and makes me ask what if...' There were plenty of other suggestions, but my favourite was 'the intake of breath - the 'oooh!' - moment'.
And apparently that was spot on. The word 'inspire' comes from the Latin inspirare - to breathe in, or to breathe life into.
A more formal definition is 'the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially something creative.' It is, essentially, the moment of creation. The lightbulb moment. The seed with potential to grow.
So where does inspiration come from? As in, where in our brains does it happen? There's a lot of evidence that it arises in the subconscious part of our brain - the limbic system. It involves the subconscious, or dreams, or imagination, and is NOT, strangely enough, related to words - even though the form it eventually takes will be written in an author's case.
You'd think that there would be a finite number of ideas to have, wouldn't you? We've probably all heard there are only seven story types - but there are a darn sight more than only seven stories in the world, aren't there? Writers are inspired to see new connections, new ways of using things that already exist - and it's THAT which brings us the rich variety of fiction available to us.
But ideas don't always make it much beyond the inspiration phase. Every author probably has a number of manuscripts or half-finished stories languishing on the laptop or in a notebook. How do you know which idea to run with? Which has legs of its own and will run in a direction you didn't expect? For me, it's the ones that I have the most questions about - but the answers keep coming. It's the idea that keeps growing, 'getting bigger and brighter' was how Isabel described it, before she gave us our first prompt; a woman is standing in front of a house.
We began to throw a few ideas around - there was something inside she wanted. It was her childhood home. She was stalking someone. Destiny lay beyond the front door... As we talked, we started to build on the basics and the suggestions got more involved. The 'growing bigger and brighter' was happening. Right there. In that moment!
Inspiration can be found in many and varied places and from much of our lived experience, but wherever we find it, we often find an emotional connection and depth. We draw on how we felt, what we saw, the smell of Grandma's baking or the sound of a song playing on the radio which was playing when... Sensory memory plays a huge role in bringing a scene alive - not only to ourselves, but to our readers.
We used a few more prompts to explore inspiration through place and sensory memory; 'two people walk over a bridge' was the first, and picking a couple of objects from the table was the second. For the first, as usual, every one of us came up with something entirely different even though we'd been given the same starter. The second was much more varied, as you'd expect, but even when two people chose the same object the resulting writing was very, very different.
Here's what I chose, and what I had time to write in the session:
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Look closely after you've read what I wrote - can you see what's missing from
the photo that I included in my scene? |
The mist swirled around his feet as he approached the gates. He knew this path well, had walked it many times before. It was still there, slightly soft under his boots after the recent rain but well trodden and familiar. Yet he remained on edge, wondering whether his memory of the way would be sufficient to prevent a stumble or a turned ankle now that he couldn't see it.
The gates were a ghostly grey, the mist muting their usual shade of wrought iron. They stood open, twice the height of a man, their elaborate swirls and curls writhing along their width.
He hesitated, peering up at the ornate crown topping their span, admiring the craftsmanship of their creator.
And then he put his hand into his pocket and drew out the talisman. His thumb played with the simple cuts which made up the face...
What do you do though, when the ideas dry up? When inspiration isn't filling your head with the next perfect scene in your novel or providing the story you hope is going to win you that competition and big prize?
We spent a little time listening to a recording of Liz Gilbert talking about taking fear and creativity on a road trip. Liz is the author of Big Magic - Creative Living Beyond Fear. And Fear, we came to realise, is not only a close friend of Creativity (everyone has doubt demons or imposter syndrome for example) but is also something which closes us down creatively
and reduces our ability to find solutions. It goes back to a basic physical reaction - fear exists as part of our natural fight or flight response. How can we think creatively about how to catch an elephant when the darned thing's chasing us across the savannah? (Must point out here - that's my analogy, not something we were told! Just in case I've not hit the nail on the head). Our brain just can't tell the difference between a physical event (I'm being chased by an elephant!) or a mental one (I don't know what to write next!) We have to get past the fear in order to deal with the problem.
There are various things you can do as an author to get the inspiration flowing past or around the block. Stick your character into an unexpected situation and write about how they react. Break away from the new stuff - go back and edit what you've already done. (That's a favourite of mine when I'm stuck.) Take a long walk in the fresh air. Leave what you're struggling with and find a scene you DO want to write about (I do this ALL the time - my first s****y draft is full of notes like 'describe the room' or 'Bleurgh! This isn't working' that I revisit at a later stage). "Make s**t happen", as the lovely Julie Cohen once told me.
I think, by the end of the workshop, I realised that 'inspiration' is a single word, but it covers an awful lot of 'stuff'. The very act of nailing it down seems to make it lose its magic - how can you possibly explain what happens in your head when you have that moment of clarity and the first spark of something utterly amazing? I get inspired all the time - I throw ideas out ten-a-penny when I'm working with children. I dream vividly, and often incorporate bits I remember into my work. (Though quite what I shall do with the image of a golden Landrover with a large transparent-sided canopy on its back, driving down the High Street in town...only to realise once it had passed me that it was a Popemobile and the Pope was standing under the canopy, waving to everyone, I have no idea. Answers on a postcard, please!)
Inspiration is a mystical, fleeting thing. The real magic lies in what we - I - create with it...
