One of the commonest questions
fiction writers get asked, I think, is “where does your inspiration come from?” The simplest, and actually truest,
answer is “everywhere”, yet that always sounds like a cop-out to me. In
reality, inspiration CAN come from anywhere; from your everyday life, from the
people around you. It hides within the events of your day, or maybe what you
see on TV or read in the newspaper. It can spring out at you from something you
overheard, some joke or snippet of gossip while you were in the coffee shop or
having lunch with your friends. Creative people can recognise inspiration where
others might only see the ordinary, or mundane.
Personally, I think that finding
inspiration also depends on what type of genre you write in. If I was a romance
writer, or a crime writer, I could find a wealth of inspiration on any news
channel. Horror writers too, I’d imagine – far too often! But what if you’re
like me, a fantasy writer? How does a writer who works in unfamiliar, created
worlds find inspiration? Does it come purely from our own imagination or can it
also be found in our everyday lives?
The answer, of course, is “yes, of
course it can,” and just the other day I found a prime example of how
inspiration works for me.
I am extremely fortunate to live in
a particularly beautiful and rural part of North Hampshire in the UK. I am
surrounded by farmland, by fields of crops, by hedges that change their colours
depending on the season. Rabbits and hares, deer and pheasant run in the fields
(not always a good thing when you own Lurchers, as I do!) and there are wide
field margins around which the farmer permits us to walk. Our roads are country
lanes and therefore fairly quiet, and the village is one of the prettiest
around. It also contains some of the nicest people you could wish to meet.
This area is primarily a working,
food-producing farm. Wheat, sesame, oilseed rape, grass for seed and hay,
sheep, cattle and pigs can all be found in the fields. Tractors are a regular
sight and they can churn up the lanes and field margins, especially at this
time of year. Farmers by nature and profession are a practical lot, not given,
you’d be excused for thinking, to flights of fancy. And yet, one day, I turned
a corner of a field I often walk around and was confronted by the scene in the
photo above. There, in the entrance to a mundane, muddy, working farmyard were
these fabulous standing stones, appearing as if by magic (although I suspect by
tractor) overnight. I was entranced. Such an unexpected sight immediately set
my writing senses a-tingle – how could I fail to be inspired?
What gets your creative juices
flowing? Has anyone else come across something so unexpected, it resulted in a
piece of writing? I’d love to hear!
