GET
INSPIRED
By
Joan Kilby
I had a dream in which I was called upon to give a talk on
what inspired me as a writer. It was a typical anxiety dream;
I'm late in arriving, I have nothing prepared and when I get
there, the venue isn't a small friendly writers group but
a great hall filled with hundreds of people.
Someone
whisks me over to a mirror to have my makeup done. I take
my time choosing a lipstick from a huge range of colours but
finally select one and apply it. When I look in the mirror
I discover to my horror that my face resembles an impressionist
painting. Every color available is daubed, not just on my
lips, but all over my face. I walk toward the front of the
room in a panic, not only about what I look like but what
I'm going to say. Then as I take my place behind the podium
the answer comes to me.
What inspires me as a writer?
Memories. Childhood memories mostly because for those to stay
with me into adulthood they've got to be strong enough to
resonate over the years.
"I don't have slides," I say into the microphone,
"so I'll have to paint you a word picture."
Lying in lush spring grass, breathing in the smell of moist
earth. Crocuses, purple and yellow and white, peek through
the tangle of green.
Splashing in warm shallows between sandbars at low tide, the
sky and sea a pale shimmering blue. Salt and sand crust my
skin, tiny flatfish flutter softly beneath my toes.
Perched on the sturdy limb of a cherry tree surrounded by
green leaves and rough bark, reaching for a cluster of luscious
ripe cherries. Biting into the sun-warmed fruit, savoring
the sweet explosion of flavour as juice dribbles down my fingers,
staining the skin a rich purple.
Writing isn't simply recording our sensory memories, I tell
my audience, it's also about emotional memory. The most vivid
are archetypal feelings that tap into the collective unconscious,
that are so universal everyone can identify.
To create authentic characters we have to reach deep inside
ourselves and bring forth the emotions that accompany life
events, both major and minor. The scenes above were associated
with the sense of deep dreamy contentment I was lucky enough
to experience frequently as a child.
There
are other memories that even after decades can cause my skin
to heat with embarrassment or my heart to swell with pride
or longing or happiness.
First grade and the mortification of wetting myself on the
way to school. The dark stain down the inside legs of my leotards.
Jumping in a water-filled ditch in an insane attempt to cover
up what had happened.
Getting up the courage to run up and kick the ball away from
the biggest meanest player on the opposing soccer team. The
triumph when I went on to score a goal.
The crescent moon and evening star shining in a twilight sky
suddenly overwhelm me with an ineffable longing; the truth
is out there if only I could grasp it.
The breathless excitement of seeing him across the dance hall,
the fumbling touch, the shy sweetness of that first kiss.
In my dream I can see the rapt faces of my audience. I've
captured their interest with personal experiences. But I'm
not writing my memoirs so what else is necessary to inspire
me to the art of storytelling?
Imagination. We make up characters and place them in a world
of our creation. We give our hero and heroine relatives, pets,
jobs, homes, clothes, in short, every detail which might describe
a real person. We give them personality and character, flaws
and conflicts. We give them problems and the strength to overcome
them, goals and the inner resources to achieve their dreams.
Imagination draws on the subconscious which is layered with
everything you've ever seen or heard or experienced in your
life including events and people you've forgotten. Things
you might not even be aware of knowing or thinking lurk in
the recesses of your mind just waiting for the right character
or the appropriate conflict through which to enter your story
world.
Arthur Koestler defines the act of creation as bringing together
or juxtaposing two seemingly unrelated ideas or objects to
create something new and different. Humor, for example, relies
on the element of surprise inherent in this concept. Think
of Mel Gibson, the macho ad exec who wears a bra and shaves
his legs to find out how women think. Or Monty Python's upper
middle class men in business suits learning how to 'walk silly.'
Writing is an act of creation. Until we put the words down
on paper the characters and their story don't exist. We exercise
our imagination to combine individual elements in a way that
will illuminate universal emotional truths yet do it in an
exciting fresh manner. We draw on memory and imagination to
create an new world where unexpected events happen to characters
constructed by us and made real by our own experiences. 'Voice'
makes our writing unique. It, too, comes from a lifetime of
memories plus imagination which we then consciously distill
to reflect the essence of who we are.
The moral of this tale is simple: As writers we're never 'unprepared'
because we carry the seeds of our inspiration with us wherever
we go-memory and imagination. Tap into your subconscious,
relive the best and worst moments of your life, dip your pen
in the palette of imagination and apply all the colours of
the rainbow to your story. Give your characters depth and
breadth and soul. Get inspired and get writing.
