Getting Inspired Again!

I have been away from my blog for ages and have been busy with work, which is a tyrant when it comes to my writing as well as a million other things, and have subsequently dropped off my writing progress...and it was all going so well. However I am getting back on the horse and with a holiday imminent I am taking my laptop and planning some writing for the evenings when little ones are snoozing. I was able to revisit Wheal Peevor last week with a friend who was visiting us and it again inspired me to pick up the reins again. It is three months since I first visited it and the site was much greener and had a totally different feel to the stark greyness of February. I have also made contact with Rebecca Anderson who has written, "Knife" and "Rebel" as a Christian writer of children's sci-fi and fantasy. Not only do we share writing interests, but she also likes A-ha and Doctor Who and has Cornish links. She has been very gracious in answering a very inquisitive email that I sent her and her answers to my many questions have given me new vigour to persue a planned route with some of my characters that I was uncertain of.

In addition I have also had a tentatively positive email from a Christian publishing firm asking to see the full manuscript of the Daniel material that I have written. It is just a request to see more, however anything that is not a straight, 'Thanks but no thanks," is an encouragement to me so watch this space.
The photo above is Wheal Peevor in May and the picture here is of a tunnel through a cliff at Portreath beach...just thought it was FAB. It conjured up images of smugglers, secret passageways to other worlds and it also just made me feel my pause in writing was over. The great thing about living here is that I do not have to go very far to experience the something beautiful and inspiring to help me lift a tired work head and work on the joy of writing again. It is extremely good to be posting again as I have missed hearing everyone's news and talking writing again.

Creative Evolution

There has been a creative evolution for me over the past few days. It started when I visited some tin mine ruins nearRedruth, called Wheal Peevor, where I took over 60 photos of the ruins there. I had been looking for a place that would be the 'muse' for a few chapters in my book and this was it. I played around with sepia to age some of the photos and the whole place was fantastically atmospheric and there is brilliant light the further west in Cornwall one travels. There was also an abundance of gorse that was brilliant yellow in flower. In addition we had the wonderful experience of having the the place entirely to ourselves...breathtaking.
Following the photography on Wednesday I was inspired to do some sketching of a scene in my new sketch book from one of the photos, creating the detail of a scene from one of my many photos. I am not gifted at all in painting or drawing, but the experience was useful in rounding the scene in my head. I was able to add the original picture and text detailing the scene which was really brilliant to help me visualise the scene in my head too.
The final stage of the creative evolution at this point was the story mirror. I had two 99p IKEA mirrors sitting at home ready to be decorated. My little five year old daughter wanted to do to fairy mirror, which involved pink tissue paper, glitter and grasses from the garden! It was lovely doing this with her and it also inspired me to do something for myself. I used the time to create a mirror that had hints and images about the novel I am writing at the moment. I was able to use words, pictures, colour and texture to create a feature that will hang above my writing desk as a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. The next stage, which will begin this week, is to actually write from all this creativity and create the scenes in my head and change what I need to change. This has inspired me, raised my self confidence and made me believe that what I am writing is worth reading too. I have been inspired to write by being creative in other ways and it has been an exciting couple of days. I hope the mirror gives enough hints to raise an interest in the story behind it.

Creative Writing

I am in the middle of restructing a number of things about my book before I can continue writing it. I have changed character names and I am off later in the week to Wheal Peevor - ruins of mine workings site - to help me sort out some opening chapters that I am not totally happy with. This weekend my five year old daughter asked me to help her make a notebook, which I happily did, deciding to make myself one too. I am no artist, as the picture below proves, however this did give me the opportunity to visualise a character on paper and add details about them to it to help me develop my characters and details of the book. The character below is one of my villans and I was very pleased as my art attempt inspired a whole backstory which is written around the picture. I am hoping to add photos and maybe sketches of the mine workings to this sketch book as well as some of my central characters and places. Inspiration and motivation is coming in lots of diferent forms and I am feeling regenerated in my enthusiasm for my book again. The next stage will be chopping and changing chapter lengths as they are too long and full of adverbs! I have discovered that I use them quite a lot and need to look at my 'show not tell' pieces carefully. I will be writing new bits soon but feel I have to deal with these barriers before I can move on with it.

What's in a name?

The picture here is of Polzeath in Cornwall. The interesting thing about living in Cornwall is that so many of the place names describe where or what they are or were. For instance if a place name is prefixed by 'tre-' then it means 'farm/homestead' and 'chy-' means 'house/home'.
I have been musing over the significance of character names. It is easy to pick names that you link with people you have known including all their character traits and quirks. I am having a spring clean of my unfinished novel and have decided to change three character's names. I was feeling unhappy about these original choices, so I decided to research names that could summarise their character or personality. I have had an amazing time trawling the internet for Native American, African, Sumerian, Irish and possible even Middle Earthnames and meanings for inspiration. I have settled on some great names I would not have considered and I am very happy with how the group of characters now looks on paper. Jon M shared with me when he visited last week that a character in his book was inspired by the contents of his curry

How do you choose names for your characters and do they secretly mirror the personalities of folk you know?

Word Explosion Success!

I have been away from my blog a very long time and I apologise to all those who thought I may have fallen off the blogging planet. Amongst lots of other things (Christmas, snow, illness etc) I have been responsible alongside a colleague for the first Children and Young People's LitFest in North Cornwall. We had a number of workshops run by Caroline Binch, Bridget Crowley, Tim Bowler, Helen Dunmore and Jon Mayhew. Jon travelled from Cheshire to Cornwall to do two excellent sessions on Gory Ballads and Scary Stories, one of which was at Bodmin Jail, the other at Bude Castle. He had the largest turnout with 40 adults and kids at Bodmin and his book is not even out till April!! It was also fantastic because a parent came up to us at the end of his Bodmin session and explained that her son was extremely dyslexic and had been shy about sharing his story, however he had really been inspired by Jon and the session as a whole, which simply has to be a mark of success. It was also a joy to spend some time getting to know Jon and introduce him to a taster of Cornwall (and I don't just mean clotted cream scones!).
In addition I went to the session with Helen Dunmore, most known for her Ingo books. She was gracious and approachable to all who came to see her... a real gem. So I think I can safely say that it was a great start and we have lots to develop and build on for next year. It also inspired and motivated me in my writing as I admit to having had little writing time, although I did submit a short story in January. I think I had lost a little confidence and needed some encouragment and inspiration to revisit it and pick it up again. This has begun with a spring clean of my blog with a new design and the intention to keep it regularly updated and more writing focused. It has been a brilliant week and a special thank you to Jon for traveling so far and doing such great workshops that inspired the children of Bude and Bodmin this week.

Having a 'Hoot'

Yesterday I thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful day out with my kids at the local Owl Sanctuary. It is a fantastic place that not only displays these incredible birds, but also rears owl chicks and rehabilitates rescued birds, including those hit by cars etc. They also do a flying display with a couple of the owls and my son and I were particularly thrilled to watch the falconer fly a barn owl. Barn owls are my absolute favourite; they have a hypnotic and inspiring serenity and beauty about them. My son shares my love of them and he had the particular thrill of being able to put on the falconer's glove and have the barn owl land on it. He is a sponge for natural history and fact finding at the moment, so it was a fantastic day for him.
It got me thinking about barn owls for my 'tween' novel. It has introduced another potential thread for my novel, which is great, but also has me worried that my story may have more threads than the Bayeux Tapestry and may therefore be too complicated to complete without ending up in knots!!
Really enjoying the summer holidays, although resigning myself to having very little time and energy for writing and therefore resolving to put all that energy into my two little people until September 2nd, when my youngest goes full time at school and I have a larger window of opportunity to finish my novel. In the meantime I will content myself with writing ideas I have on index cards and filing them under ' to be written'!!

Inspirational Lewis!!

I have just finished watching the first in a new series of Lewis. I have not watched this before and confess to never being a Morse fan, but it was ironing night and so I gave it a go! I was gripped; probably because it centred around a young author who had had his fantasy novel published. Of course being a detective series there are grisly murders and seedy secrets, however I was intrigued with how the plot was laced throughout with cross references and nods to two writers who share Detective Lewis's surname:

CS Lewis

and
Lewis Carroll

One of the characters lectured on Carroll and the young author, who was later murdered by his foster mother/lover(!!) was inspired to write by CS Lewis. It was inspired how the references to these two authors, their love of fantasy and potentially their secrets was woven in alongside solid detective Lewis.

It also got me thinking, I wonder who we writing bloggers are/were inspired by? What authors inspired you as a child? Which books grip you now as an adult? Does your choice of writing reflect your tastes in reading? Answers in the comments box below folks, I really would love to know!

For me there are so many, however as a child I read CS Lewis, Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl in particular. I loved Famous Five and devoured them daily, reading them till I knew them by heart. I also read a lot of books about ponies!! As a teenager I was absorbed by Terry Pratchett and Arthurian legends. I think quite all of these have inspired me with fantasy and history (although I studied medieval history at Uni so I didn't need much encouragment!) In adult life I have read quite a bit of YA and 'tween' fiction, but without doubt one of my main inspirations has been Michelle Paver. I am reading, "Shadow mancer," by GP Taylor at the moment and really enjoyed Eoin Colfer's' "Airman," recently too. So now you know a bit more about my tastes, I would love to hear about yours!!

Inspiration, Emotion and Editing

It was my mum's birthday this week and every time there is a birthday in the family I am tempted to go back through old photos. Memories are so powerful and pictures, like smells and sounds, evoke very emotional responses in me. Every time I see the photo above of my son aged 24 hours old, I remember the joy of his arrival and the pain of knowing he faced surgery just 10 days later for his cleft repair. Now aged seven, every time I look at this photo and then look at him now, I have a catalogue of emotional responses ranging from pain, fear and worry to pride, joy and hope. I have tried to harness them in my writing as I believe every experience we have has purpose and can be used positively in a number of ways.

I went back over my chapters on Wednesday and I have to own up to editing them all slightly, though I was not too ruthless. I just felt I could not go on writing the story till I had modified the dialogue in chapter two, it was like a barrier I had hit and had to hurdle before I could go on. I have made a solemn promise to myself now that I will not edit anything else in this book until I have finished it. This will keep me motivated and stop me languishing in chapter three!!!

Speaking of photos, I was trawling through my Cornwall shots and came across this clearing, taken at Lanhydrock (NT place near Bodmin). It has provided me with a very visual setting for next chapter of my book and so I am planning to get going with this over the weekend. I do not want to stall again but I have a busy November ahead so the words are discipline and organisation (Boy, am I in trouble).

A Camel and a Cave

Today has been frantic but has ended well. Hollie is still harbouring a nasty sickness bug, so has been asleep most of the day. Connor and Andy went for a boys bike ride on the Camel Trail and Andy was good enough to take a lovely picture of the River Camel for my blog! I have been feeling guilty all day as Hollie has been periodically weeping telling me how hungry she is and I have been trying to explain that food is making her sick, so she really can only drink. Explaining the benefits of fasting to overcome sickness to a three year old is a non-starter really.

I have managed to start my writing challenge today based on the picture from yesterday's post. The picture is of a sea cave on Perranporth beach that I took last summer when we were returning from our camping trip near St. Ives. I was amazed at the images and the story that it evoked for me. My 30 minutes became 45 so I could put an end to the piece I was writing. The thing that surprised me most was the empathy and almost physical pain I shared with my character as she grieved for a lost brother. Maybe because it was written 'under pressure' but I really felt able to communicate her pain by actually feeling it myself to a point. Hope this happens often as it is going to help me with my character for my book, who is a young carer.

So despite a stressful and sickness filled day, the end of the day has brought a really positive time of writing which can only be useful longer term. Off to continue with Soul Eater now.

Inspiration and a promise to myself

Our local weekly paper had a supplement in it this week which was about 25 full page pictures of the Cornish coastline from the air. There were some truly stunning photos of what is, I have to say it, an inspirational coastline. I have a few favourites, the pictures of Tintagel, Bedruthan Steps, Crown Mines at Botallack and Kyance are awesome. They got me thinking as I have had an emotional and frustrating couple of days around my writing. I have decided to use these pictures and some of my own and set myself a 30 minute writing challenge every day based on one of these pictures. I will aim to write for thirty minutes using one image a day. The aim is to get me back into writing and believing that that I can write something meaningful each day. thirty minutes is achievable, and the rare days when I have more time I will dedicate to my book. The picture above is one I took last year at Perranporth beach and I think I will start with this one tomorrow and then begin with the supplement pictures on Monday. Decided to log each day's progress here to help me post regularly too.

Had a big inside day today, Hollie is unwell and it has rained and rained and rained. Our four chickens were more liked drowned muddy rats than beautiful soft feathered birds when I went down to see them this evening. All four looked singularly unimpressed with the weather but perked up when I brought gifts of sweetcorn and bread and milk mash. Chickens may not be the brightest birds but they are very attentive if your hands contain something edible!!

Admiration and Aspiration

I have been reading Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver, partly because it is an excellent book but also to help me think through structuring my novel as it is historical like hers. I have been inspired by reading parts of her website www.michellepaver.com as she is so down to earth and yet has had the most remarkable experiences in her research and her life. Her encounter with a black bear in California and how this impacted on her creation of the bear in Wolf Brother was breathtaking. On her website she describes an encounter with a stranger on a train that helped her move from successful lawyer to successful writer. The advice she gives in her interviews is solid and attainable and has reminded me that if I am to take this writing business seriously, I need to be writing whenevre and wherever I can in this hectic life of mine. I have had a new beginning for my book come and I am planning my infamous spider diagram to help me crystalise my story and plotline.

Michelle Paver is an author I admire and aspire to be like in as much as I hope the passion I have for history is communicated as ably as she communicates her love of the Stone Age and wolves in her fantastic stories. I have no doubt that if I had read her novels as a child I would have been spellbound as I remain so as an adult who loves quality children's books. I do not want to be someone who always wanted to write and never did, I want to be someone who took Ms Paver's advice and did what I wanted with my life. I suffer with self doubt and a tendancy to self depricate so I have my own hurdles to jump before I put anything I write into an agent or publishers hands.