Month: April 2014

Finding Inspiration

I was recently asked the following question in an interview: “Where do you go to find inspiration?” The interviewer sited the habit of Charles Dickens, who would take to the streets of London every day in a five to six mile stroll while looking for source material, which left me with an appealing visual image. I just like the idea of this writer cruising the London streets, his eyes darting hither and yon as he tallied up random impressions. Because I wanted to answer the question to the best of my ability, I pondered it until it hit me: I don’t go anywhere; I simply live my life with my eyes open and allow myself to be influenced. Sometimes the most seemingly inconsequential things can affect me, and by this I mean strike an emotional cord. They typically happen in the blink of an eye yet this doesn’t make them any the less meaningful. What I do is follow the cord once it’s struck and let the impression fully in so I can feel its repercussion.
I think inspiration can’t be sought out because it resides within every human being. And because it resides within, there are moments when it is triggered. Once it is, I think inspiration resonates in such a way that a writer feels compelled to put it into words. Therefore, it is not so much a question of “Where you go to find inspiration,” it’s more like “What do you do once you acknowledge you’re inspired.” As for me , when inspiration is triggered, I grab a pen.

A Southern Mother’s Influence

 

How Does One Become a Writer?
My mother was not a writer, but maybe she should have been. She was one of the most natural born story tellers I’ve ever had chance to come across, and she glowed under a willing audience, well aware when she had one in the palm of her hand. She was a product of what I now call the old south, raised in an era when ladies were cultured and charming. Her name was Shirley, and never was a woman more appropriately named. To me, the name tinkles like Champagne in cut glass: captivating and celebratory in its effervescence, happened upon only on rare occasions. Never have I seen a woman occupy a chair quite like Shirley, who could be found at the cocktail hour holding court in the card room in the house I grew up in with one feminine leg tucked beneath her and the other dangling freely at her seductive crossed knee. This was how she observed the end of the day, for in her mind, there was much to discuss. She was fascinated in the players who populated her extravagant world and had an uncanny ability to dissect their character down to the last nuance. I couldn’t say now if she was insightful or just plain observant, whether she was legitimately concerned or liked to gossip, but she had a way of telling a story that could turn a trip to the grocery store into the most enviable journey ever taken. I used to watch my mother—study her with adolescent awe, looking for clues on how to evolve from an inchoate girl into her replica. I could have come out and asked her, but I always knew she wasn’t the type to ever confess. She is nine long years in heaven now, but the reverberating shadow she cast keeps her never far from reach. I was asked just the other day how I became a writer; whether I studied it in college or took some other road. It’d be so convenient to say I have an accredited piece of paper granting me permission, but the truth is I have much more than that: I grew up under the tutelage of a southern shanachie, who showed me the seemingly ordinary in life is actually extraordinary; it all depends on how the story is told.