Finding Inspiration

Underneath my chest of drawers is a small space, ideal for gathering dust snakes and curiously fine wood shavings.  In this nook I keep my ROA - that's Record of Achievement for those unlucky ones who didn't receive a burgundy, hard backed, certificate holder on completion of their GCSEs - my husband's Harry Potter sticker books and a copy of Hello magazine celebrating the wedding of William & Kate.  It's the perfect hidey-hole for such things.  It also contains a blue folder and a black box file.

These two items sum up the entirety of my imagination.  Or at least the captured sparks that I managed to have a working pen and a piece of paper to hand for.  They are jam packed.  They are of course filled to the brim with excellent ideas.  And idiotic ones.  And ones that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Massive, world building, ten years to write the mythology behind them ideas. Short, often single word ideas dreamed up from a random article read or something overhead on a packed tube.  The time has come to look at them with real scrutiny and decide what has mileage. After all, I made the decision to 'be' a writer therefore I must actually write.

I have been writing in one form or another most of my life.  As a young sproglet my cheerful tale of Santa Claws had my parents guffawing for months - they still reference it with tears of laughter in their eyes.  I wrote about a magical land called Gon-Dor where teddy bears were trying to save the world.  That was before my immersion into Tolkein, I think.  Writing stories in school was always easy for me but I remember forgetting to do homework once and having to copy a passage from an obscure Enid Blyton.  My teacher said it lacked pretty much everything.  I think she knew.

Although my work world never involved writing actual stories, it did involve magazine article writing, copy writing for new services and a huge variety of sales material, website text, social media alerts and event blurb.  Perhaps that's why the urge to write was simmering on low and not bursting to be set free.  Cue motherhood and the ability to create a single coherent sentence went out the window.

But now I sit amidst toy trains and stuffed teddies in the splendour of toddlerdom and words begin trickling back.  As long as no-one interrupts me and I don't have to think about anything else at the same time.  Unless I'm finding it hard to concentrate and then an episode of the latest Netflicks whatever usually helps.  Which sound bizarre but it works.  Last year I wrote a book.  This year I have not.  I am sending out query letters to agents in the vain hope that someone else likes my book. So while I wait I need to start work on another project.

There is a scratching at the back of my head that keeps telling me - you should be writing.  I intend to try.  An hour a day.  Which means that I'll definitely have plenty of time to get through my Netflicks backlog.