Inspiration – An Old Portrait
I’ve said before that inspiration can be found just about anywhere. This week I’ll share three such incidents that happened to me recently.
When I’m not writing (and that always seems to happen from mid-November to mid-January), I’m usually indulging in some other creative outlet such as designing houses or handwork. Last weekend I was on an art website looking for inspiration for a room when it happened.
I felt as if I was looking in a mirror.
The portrait was of a woman of similar age with the same facial structure, same shoulder set, same ears, same jaw, same furrow in her brow.
So of course my writer brain goes a bit nuts producing three or four scenarios for short stories and novel-length stories about a heroine who stumbled across a portrait that looked so much like her it was uncanny. Add to this a 400 year time span between the life of the heroine and the life of the portrait’s subject.
The plot pot started to boil.
That’s all it takes. Some off the cuff comment or a glimpse at an antique portrait can set your writer mind in action.
Where have you found inspiration lately?
Journaling Through
I joked (sort of) about hiding a journal on the gurney when I had surgery. Of course, I didn’t get to do that, but I did ask for it the first time I woke up. My husband patiently handed me a spiral notebook and a pen. I was reading those half-dozen pages last night.
They aren’t much.
In fact, I think I mostly journaled about what was going on in the moment, what the nurses said, how I felt about the unplanned overnight stay. I didn’t try much; I just put pen to paper and wrote whatever was on my mind.
What surprised me was the level of detail a barely coherent mind included. Was that really me, finally showing evidence of discipline or was it the drugs? My spouse tells me the details are mostly accurate. It is those details that give me the best information regarding my state of mind.
What would happen if we handed a journal to every troubled teen, every newly diagnosed cancer victim, every recently widowed adult? What if they wrote in a journal until they no longer felt a benefit (assuming they don’t enjoy the habit)? What would those journals reveal a month, six months, or year down the road?
I’m a tad more experienced than the average person who hasn’t written more than letters or a report since the last school term paper, so perhaps I see the potential through a rosy lens. But imagine what your thoughts and observations…and the things you noticed…might tell you about yourself?
No matter how many years I’m given to stand up for the practice, I’ll never have enough time to fully extol the benefits of regular journal writing, and not just for times of change or stress. Let me just say one more time that I can’t think of any better means of developing as a person than prayer and keeping a journal.
I Think I’m Back
I’m mostly recovered from a surgery that was far more involved, painful and expensive than expected. NaNoWriMo is over. I’ve functioned without narcotics for a whole week.
I think I’m back. I sure want to be. New story ideas are coming hot and heavy. I have outlines for three articles, two rough drafts to polish, a blog to keep and…oh yeah. Christmas cards. Hmm.
Thank you for the encouraging emails, prayers, and concern. Everything is healing great. I’ll get full pathology news the week before Christmas. Time to be me again. Onward and upward!
Writer Takes Notebook Everywhere
There comes a time in every writer’s life when awareness begins to creep in. Have so many years gone by already? We examine our warranties only to find they expired around the 40th birthday. Maintenance is now part of reality. Sometimes maintenance isn’t enough and a part needs to be replaced, rebuilt, or done without.
“What is she talking about?”
“I have no clue. We’re in the middle of a novel here. We don’ t have time for a sidetrack.”
“It must be going to mess up our schedule. Here she is again.”
Funny, maintenance never seems to hush the little voices that live in the writer’s head, but that’s probably a good thing. Split personalities make character creation easier? Hmm…discuss.
My chassis is scheduled for maintenance in a few days (and of course the notebook goes along). I expect to be back on line by Wednesday, November 18th, ready to crack jokes about the new scar. And another question…if chicks dig scars, why don’t dudes?
So my notebook will get to see everything through being knocked out and I’ve been promised it will be next to me when I wake up. We’re in the middle of NaNoWriMo, I explain to the nurse. I look her in the eye. This is very important. She controls her desire to roll eyes back at me and promises the notebook will be with me when I wake up.
We get all the way out to the car before my husband tells me I forgot to negotiate the pen. I have a plan. I’m going to tape it to my hip. Think they’ll notice?
Bad Writer. BAD
I’ve learned a few things in the time I’ve been writing with intention. One of those things is to write every day no matter what. This is especially important to me in the middle of anything longer than a short story.
I didn’t write for three days. Of course it was harder to get back into it and of course I thought it would be easier to take that fourth day off. But discipline is discipline, so three days was as far as I was going to stretch it.
I know better. And this time just proved all over again why I need to write. every. day. Something interesting did happen, though. It reminded me of something Annie Dillard said in A Writing Life. If you just can’t bring yourself to write, the work has a flaw or you are headed in the wrong direction. I’m not sure that fully applies to my few days off, but the story had an interesting twist happen when I began writing again.
Would that twist have happened without time off?
One of my concerns with this novel is for the reader to believe the characters believe in a situation that is abnormal…or as my MC puts it “I refuse to be a freak in anyone’s freak show. This has gone too far.” In the scene following the break, she said those words and exhibited her denial. I think that’s important for the story overall and her believability.
Ah, well. I may never know. However, no more time off for me until the rough draft is out.
