Inspire Me

  
   It doesn't take a lot to inspire me. 

   In my first week of second year I was sitting on the front step of my new house. The tiny patch of garden we have was completely overgrown, tangled with weeds and no doubt home to a few disgusting creatures. But I ventured closer and put my head as close to the ground as I could, before looking up. What I saw was a spooky forest, a daring path the dwarves from J R R Tolkein's imagination would fear. Enclosed in my mind, I took inspiration from those weaving weeds and plants and placed them in my own writing.

   Inspiration is everywhere and it is everything. I took it from something as simple as a dishevelled garden. Others take it from far grander events. Emily Dickinson's work was inspired, or perhaps contaminated, with the American Civil War. Her fascination with her sister in law also had a huge impact on her intimate writing.

   There is a question behind these wonderings. Do we seek inspiration in the world or does it sneak into our work without asking permission?

   And even though I ask the question with the intention of answering it myself, I'm still left confused. I don’t think I hunt for inspiration, but when I bend down next to some tangled weeds, can it really be an accident?

   Stepping away from plants though, and looking towards my own work, I can’t help but notice the lack of a father with every main character I write. Is that inspiration from my own broken family, or is it an unconscious decision to just write what I am familiar with?

   If no one is there to analyse and pick apart our work, is there a fundamental meaning behind it? If in fifty years, by some miraculous sequence of events, my writing is studied and read, will students like us be giving every word justification? ‘She wrote this because of this and she wrote that because of that’.

   I hope not. Inspiration is not a safari hunt. Influence doesn’t seep into every single sentence. Sometimes I write a word just to write a word.

   

   To conclude my final blog post, I give you Kemosabe, a song inspired by Tonto from The Lone Ranger. 

        

Invisible

   
   Should a writer be invisible? 

   Taking this in another direction, should an artist have a face? Would a band such as One Direction still be as successful as they are without their faces, personalities or press? Wanting to know the source of your most loved art - paintings, books or songs - is a natural reaction. You wish to explore further. You want to know what inspired them to create such a thing.

   Roland Barthes, however, disagrees. A text should stand alone from the author's intentions and historical context. To agree with him would ignore every author that has ever produced important texts throughout history. The likes of William Shakespeare, who introduced hundreds of words into the English language, Charles Dickens, whose stories were significant social commentaries in the Victorian era, and even Roald Dahl and J K Rowling, who each gave tremendous input into the increase of children reading, would all be dismissed. They would be banished to a side note on the blurb.

   To me, this is ridiculous. Of course, these examples have had a profound effect on society and history, but what about the authors who write for the sake of profit and publicity? Writers such as Lauren Goodger, Chloe Sims and Sam Faiers – all reality stars from the show The Only Way Is Essex  - have sold thousands of books in Britain. I highly doubt their audience cares much about the content of the text, for their thoughts on politics and social anxieties, or for their opinions on what impact the Arab Spring had on the rest of the planet. Their fans will be reading their books to learn more on the celebrities themselves - to learn of their pasts, romances, family and so on – and also to double check that they can indeed complete a sentence without using the word ‘like’.

                 

Social & Political or Pure Entertainment?

  With the exception of journalists and political/war correspondents, I do not believe writers purposely cram their work with events from their time. It is not in their interest to inform their audience on something they are already aware of.
   However, somehow, social and political events will always end up affecting a writer’s work, such as in the case of Emily Dickinson. She was a recluse – secluded by her own demons in a bedroom for most of her life – yet still news of the Civil War seeped into her poetry.
   Below is an extract from one of her purest poems about the Civil War, which will most probably prove popular with many other blogs. Dickinson’s writing is astoundingly beautiful, moving the reader and proving that writers do not need to personally experience hell to feel the fire.
  
They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,
Like petals from a rose,
When suddenly across the lune
A wind with fingers goes.

They perished in the seamless grass,
No eye could feel the place;
But God on his reapealless list
Can summon every face


   Writer’s cannot help but be influenced by events that surround them, especially those as horrifying as war. A trend in writing today is setting stories in the post-apocalyptic and dystopian futures. A commentary on what the world will be like in the near future if we continue to live, fight and purge as we do today, writing such as The Hunger Games and many others are just a few examples of social and political events effecting a writer’s work.


                  

A Very Short Story

   
   In Author Study we were asked to write a wedge of prose from the point of view of a free character - someone very alike to ourselves, but with no commitments, no responsibilities and facing no concequences.
   Writing in first person is an incredibly strange experience for me. I have spent my entire writing life in another persons shoes, thinking how they think and talking as they talk. It has been strange writing as me - someone who I spend most of my life attempting to hide.

* * *

   Filling my car up with petrol, my palms start to sweat. I feel clammy. The nozzle shakes in my hand. Another twenty pound lost to the road. 
    I set off, music blasting, singing at the top of my voice, window down, arm resting on the door. Total relaxation. I know it's only the calm before the storm, but I enjoy it anyway.
   They've moved. I don't know this street or this door. I know the car though. Walking up to the house, armed with a key, I happen to trip and scratch the side from boot to bonnet. How unfortunate for him. 
   I ring the doorbell. No answer. And again. Nothing. 
   An engine rumbles. It's his other car. Because, of course, someone who drives three minutes to work four days a week definitely needs two cars. 
   I square my shoulders, lifting them from their slump, and stride forward. His face scrunches into a startled frown. Confusion. Shock. Anxiety. All of the above. I toss the key from my left hand to my right and make a fist. 
   'What're you doing here?' he asks.
   I don't reply. I draw back my arm and swing across, punching him in the jaw. 
   Now I can relax.

* * *

   The moral of this story is don't use freedom as reason or as an excuse.

            

Where? What? How?

   Literally speaking, I am from a small market town, Frome, in Somerset, twenty minutes from Bath and forty five minutes from Bristol.
   In regards to this weeks task though, I'm from a working class, single parent household consisting of my mother and sister. My father is around and even lives in the same town as us, but we only see him occasionally. Looking back at stories I have written where a child is the main character, there is an obvious pattern of a strong mother, holding everything together, and an absentee father. However, I also surround the character with other male role models, such as uncles and grandfathers, which also reflect on my life. I have never actually noticed any of this until I was set this task.

   'What she saw from her window, what she read in her books, were her only external stimuli'
                                                                                                   - Amy Lowell, 1918, on Emily Dickinson

   I suppose compared to most others in my Author Study class, my book shelf would seem bare. Throughout my childhood there was one series that kept my interested in reading and writing. The Harry Potter series. The books became a comfort to me - I would read and reread them over and over. I typed out the entirety of  Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban word for word to learn how to touch type. Surrounding myself with this fantasy world has had an unbelievable impact on my writing. Another pattern that emerges within my writing is death and damage - that is, how the loss of someone close to you has an impact on life. After the death of my grandfather - the main father figure I had at the time - in a scenario similar to many of the characters in Harry Potter - writing became an outlet I desperately needed.
   For me, and evidently for Emily Dickinson also, writing is the best form of escapism one could possibly imagine.


                    

Are We Special?

   Well, are we?
   Is every painter special, or are only the likes of Da Vinci and Monet classified as that? 
   Is every person who puts pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, special?
   I believe so. 
   If two people in two separate rooms were each given a plot, two main characters and a setting, they would both produce something completely different, and I find that amazing.
   Their writing styles, the way in which they mould the story, how they force the characters to interact - that is what makes a writer special. The writer puts him/herself on the line and onto that page every single time they sit down to write. Even those not recognised for their work - which is 90% of writers out there - still get to achieve as others do. Reaching the end of a chapter or even a sentence is a triumph for most, however ordinary it may seem to most others. 
   In literature, one of the most enthralling debates is whether it was indeed a man named William Shakespeare who wrote 'the works of Shakespeare'. The strongest debate that I can see is that it doesn't matter who wrote Romeo & Juliet, The Tempest or King Lear. If they were written by John Smith, it would not make the work any more or less glorious than it is. 
   Yes, Roland Barthe's 'The Death of the Author' is an incredibly popular viewpoint for literary critics, and it reinforces the importance of text over author.
   But, as a writer myself, or someone who attempts to write, I'd like to believe that we can be just as special as the words on the page.

   And now, during this chilling winter week, let me transport you to another place where sun and beer will be sure to warm you up.