Inspiration!

There are so many potential sources of inspiration around us all the time to stimulate and enthuse us for every area of our lives, no matter what you do or who you are. 

I’ve previously mentioned my love of encouraging soundbites on Twitter, and Instagram is another recent discovery of an amazing source of inspiration.  Having just joined, I was aimlessly browsing the site - trying to work out what on earth it was all about and how to use it - when I came across a photo that encapsulated a potential character and futuristic world I’d been musing over!

Numerous “how to write” books suggest ways of getting to know your characters (e.g. writing a profile of them) but I’m a very visual person and so having a picture of a character helping me to instantly “see” them is just invaluable.  I suddenly understood so much about them and their situation!  How amazing is that – to spring board off someone else’s creativity for the inspiration to write a story?!  Creativity is such a generous and self-perpetuating phenomenon :-)

In a similar vein I was thrilled recently to take a trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park with my good friend Kirsten, a very talented photographer!  I’ve always found it interesting watching her work (and she’s the only person who’s ever been able to make me look half decent in photos) but spending hours with her taking photos on the most gorgeous of wintry days, I was totally fascinated to observe how she sees the world.  It is subtly but significantly different to my perspective.

Even when she takes some obvious shots, e.g. this lovely bridge (which I encouraged her to do, to be honest), she frames it so much better than I would.  Even more impressive is the fact that she’s made it look so good when there’s actually an unattractive green workmen’s hut hidden behind the log and a small JCB positioned behind the central pillar!

 

Then she got up close to the bridge and started snapping away, while I watched and waited and asked what on earth she was doing.  This photo shows you what she was seeing that I wasn’t!  

From that point on I started to look at the world around us in a different way as well – the reflection of tree trunks in a small un-iced part of the lake, the amazing colours and textures of a brick wall and the defining detail of a wire horse’s nose (I did remain on the fence about the beauty of a rusty knob on a metal bridge though ;-)).  But who would ever deliberately take a photo of someone's legs?  And who knew it could look so interesting?!

When you’re a writer you get the fun and privilege of seeing things through someone else’s eyes – learning to do that well is essential to writing convincingly!

But whatever you are and whatever you do, don’t go through life seeing things in the same familiar way or doing the same things again and again just for the sake of it.  Don’t let the busyness and difficulties of life make you glaze over.  Look at something in a new fresh way today and let it inspire you!