Inspiration. That force vital to an author. Where does it come from? Mine has curled up and died of late but whilst it slumbers I've been thinking of its past appearances.
I always loved writing stories at school. Composition it was called back in the day. My English teachers always wrote on my reports that I had a vivid imagination. I always thought somewhere in the recesses of my mind that I'd write a book when I got older.
Then my mother died.
That kindled my inspiration. I felt I must write about it but not at that point, it was too raw. Life took over and inspiration once more receded.
Then I became ill.
That meant many hours alone when my sons were at school. Newly divorced the loneliness drove me crazy so I relived my childhood through my pen, the good times and the bad. I bought a typewriter - had no idea what to do with a computer, that came much later after the many rejections of my first attempt at the book that I'd intended to write for so long.
I joined a creative writing class. I learned to write properly, to create characters, write fiction as well as memoir and inspiration danced on fairy light footsteps. Stories came to me, my characters held conversations in my head, raced through my dreams at night, woke me at dawn with dreams of their own. For a time I couldn't write quickly enough: the only thing holding me back was my health, many days I didn't - still don't - have the energy to think.
Now my inspiration is suffering from its own lack of energy. It occasionally comes out to play when I'm in the bath (I'm Pisces, a water sign, there must be a connection.) It rises with the steam and the fragrance of the foam bath, those conversations between characters, the settings they walk through.
My current work in progress has enjoyed scenes at The Chelsea Flower Show and has sent its characters home with a promise but here the author sits penning this blog instead of getting on with the story. I'll blame it on the heat of the wonderful summer of 2018 drying my inspiration up with the parched and cracked earth. Who'd have thought we'd be praying for rain in the UK where it never usually seems to stop, but perhaps that's what my inspiration needs, a good downpour.
