inspiration – Page 4 – Deborah Makarios

December 14, 2013

Good News, Bad News, Good News

Dorothy Sayers did it, but for some reason it never occurred to me until a friend of mine suggested it. It’s a truly brilliant idea.

Instead of waking up each morning going urgh, another day at the Dreaded Day Job, why not wake up saying ooh! I wonder what new material for a novel will be presented to me today?

Brilliant!

Dorothy Sayers worked in an advertising agency for many years and subsequently wrote Murder Must Advertise – a murder mystery set in an advertising agency. Satisfyingly, the fact that it’s an advertising agency is important to the plot. Any Old Office would not do.

Naturally, mine will be a murder mystery too, and in honour of white-collar wage-slaves everywhere, the boss will be the victim. (The first victim, anyway.) Everyone has a motive – but whodunit?

For the first time I see how much difference attitude makes, compared with circumstance. Now when my long-suffering colleagues pour out some new frustration, I don’t get worked up any more. I smile a secret inward smile and I make a cryptic little note.

On the Bad News side of the ledger, I was informed this last Tuesday that my next Monday was cancelled. High volume of work + low volume of staff = we’re unilaterally changing your hours this week (don’t even ask about my contract).
Generally the DDJ and I would go head to head on a thing like this, but not this time. This time it’s to cover bereavement leave, which is something I wholeheartedly support, so I’ll do my bit. And hopefully I’ll do my bit of writing during the Christmas holidays.

On the subject of writing, I have received some more good news. My patrons have generously decided to provide me with a small fund toward the costs of my presently unpaid job as a writer. (Paper, pen, ink, books on the craft…) On my shopping list at the moment are Kristen Lamb’s book Rise of the Machines, Jeff Gerke’s Plot Versus Character and Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering. Happy as a pig in muck!

What are your favourite workplace novels – murder mystery or otherwise? Do you have must-read recommendations for books on writing? Have you always dreamt of keeping pigs? Your comments welcomed!

May 22, 2013

Visual Inspiration

I used to have a scrapbook when I was little.

It was actually half a scrapbook, some excessively sensible parent having decided that a scrapbook as large as the child could prove problematic. (Visions of their little darling pasted flat between the covers?)

Or possibly the number of children involved exceeded the number of scrapbooks. Sharing a scrapbook is best done only with someone who has the same tastes as you; and small children are not noted for their predilection for sharing in any case.

Once I got over the trauma of seeing such an Atlas among scrapbooks (hur hur, sorry…) cut in half, I quite enjoyed the thing. I have vague memories of gluing pictures in to the scrapbook with my father (the gluing happened with my father, not to him.) That was more than twenty years ago, so I can be forgiven for vagueness of memory, I think.

The point, however, is that I enjoyed scrapbooking – the proper old fashioned sort with gluepot and scissors, none of this fancy sticker-studded deckle-edged album stuff you get these days. Proper old-school cut and paste.

So I was quite pleased when the Artist’s Way chapter for May (details to follow) suggested – nay, encouraged – the starting of a scrapbook with images that inspire, encourage, and remind you of the life you want to be living.

In my case, this includes straw bale houses, nice writing spaces, clothes I like the look of, and my own kind of LOL: Little Old Ladies.

In a magazine I found a marvellous LOL perched on top of a woodstove knitting, but she looked so comfortable I decided to leave her there. For now.

I’m not entirely sure where the LOLs sprang from, but possibly it has to do with the discovery of my first white hairs and the realisation that what I want to be when I grow up is, in fact, a little old lady.

Visual inspiration comes up a lot in writing, especially for those writers who are visually oriented.

Some have photos of their ideal ‘cast’ to hand while they write, others collect images that evoke the tone or mood they’re going for in their WIP.

Some have images more related to writing itself than to the thing they’re writing – an aspirational picture of where they’d like their writing life to be going, or an image of someone or something that inspires or encourages them to keep going.

Some have images of their setting – the more artistic being able to create their own, the rest of us cadging off others – or from the real world. This, for example – ideal fairytale castle for the more realistic sort of kingdom (none of that Neuschwanstein insanity here, thankee kindly):

One writer I’ve heard tell of has a mock-up of the cover of his WIP above his desk so he can see what he’s pushing for.

What about you?
Do you use visual inspiration?
Digital, pasted in a book, stuck on a wall or to the fridge? And do you hunt & gather or grow your own?

March 12, 2013

Stoking the Fires

Most of the time we are not writing.
This is largely due to the Dreaded Day Job.

Ideally, of course, one would either have a job which fuelled the creative juices, or a job which left your mind entirely free for thinking about writing. (All right, ideally one would be able to write as much as one liked with no outside work and an enormous stipend, but join me in the real world for the sake of the argument. Also, bring back the non-ironic use of the gender-neutral indefinite pronoun. Thank you.)

If one does not have such a convenient job, the cold hard reality is that there’s precious little mental space left for the Work In Progress. One has to make the most of what time one has – to stoke and tend the fires of inspiration, so that when time is available. one wants to write – and is ready to write.

So how does one do this?
There are many strategies, but unfortunately a lot of them double as prime forms of procrastination.

Reading about writing is one of my favourites.
Reading books about how to write, books about writers I admire – they fill me with enthusiasm. Reading books in a similar genre or tone to whatever I’m working on – at best, they fill me with an envious delight (I wish I’d written that!) and at worst, they map out pitfalls to avoid in my own work.

The useful thing about reading about writing as opposed to writing itself is that it can be squeezed into any little gap in the day, providing there is a suitable book present.

Picking up a book and reading comes naturally to me (not picking up a book and reading requires concentration and effort), whereas picking up a pen and writing requires preceding thought and usually the spreading of associated papers over a wide area.

Daydreaming about the Work In Progress is even more handy for stolen moments here and there as it requires no paraphernalia. The downside is when one has a earth-shatteringly brilliant idea (perhaps the seed word for one’s WIP) and finds one has no way of writing it down.

Of course, writers are advised to keep pen and paper on their persons at all times, but even writers need to bathe. (please note: words written in condensation on shower walls are seldom legible afterward.)

While in the throes of the Dreaded Day Job, one can also use such things as images and music to seize the imagination and recall the mind to the story underway.

Perhaps your DDJ allows you to use a personal music player (of whatever sort) – then play yourself the soundtrack to your tale.
Or images – I often to change the wallpaper on my work computer to something that reminds me of my story, and every time I see it I get a little thrill of excitement, as the story flows through my mind again.

In fact (and I am sure I am not the first writer to whom this has occurred), the whole business of feeding the flames of writerhood is remarkably analogous to other forms of devotion – whether human or divine.

We dream of our beloved. We talk about our beloved to anyone who is prepared to listen (or too polite to run away). We cherish art and music that remind us of our beloved, and we want to learn everything there is to know about them.

There is no question here of chores, or duty. Every moment we can snatch with our beloved is a pleasure, a golden trophy plucked from the mire of workaday life.

Tell me, how do you keep your fires burning?