Inspiration and writing
Adelaide Writers' Week 2010, Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens
From where for you draw your inspiration as a writer?
I guess there are as many answers to that question as there are writers! It always intrigues me when writers say that they don’t know what to write about. I rarely have that problem. I can see ideas for writing all around: in the every day events of life, in the experiences of life, in the environment, in the fascinating people we come into contact with daily, in the newspapers, in things we read, in films, television programmes and so on and so on. So writers just need to open their eyes to the whole world of ideas for writing out there just waiting for a poem, a story, an article or an essay to be written.
In recent weeks I have written about my impressions of attending this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week held as a part of the current Festival of Arts. During one of the sessions I couldn’t find a seat in the big marquee, so I sat in the shade of one of the beautiful trees which are a feature of the Women’s Pioneer Memorial Gardens where the sessions were held. It was a lovely day: bright sunshine, not too hot, gentle breeze and wonderful speakers to enlighten and entertain us.
I looked up into the trees above.
Beautiful.
I just had to take several photos to share with you here. I will use these photos, and the wonderful setting, as inspiration for some writing. The only problem now is to decide whether I write an article, a short story, a poem – perhaps a beautiful sonnet – or a blog post about those lovely trees, the sunshine filtering softly through the leaves, the birds singing overhead in the branches or some other response.
Be inspired – and use that for good writing.
Adelaide Writers' Week 2010, Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens
Adelaide Writers' Week 2010, Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens
Nice snow job you are doing on our readers, there Trev. But I think it is time we writers became honest with our readers and admitted where we get our ideas from. They should know about The Idea Factory. This franchise is a secret source known to writers around the world. There’s one in Sydney near Town Hall station and I believe there is one in Rundle Mall. They look like pokey little boarded up shops in dark corners.
In the old days a writer would push a brown paper bag with a self-addressed postcard and a 5 pound note under the door. Within a week they would receive the postcard back with one sure fire idea handwritten on it. These days you put a $50 note in the brown paper bag and write your email address on the outside. You still have to go down physically to the site yourself and put the bag under the door. This ensures that only serious writers use the service. Within week you will receive an email disguised as spam but containing one sure fire idea that you only have to copy and paste.
Luckily for us working writers there is a limit of 1 idea per month. Those who try to use the service more frequently find their names put on a black list. They are blocked from receiving any new ideas for a length of time. They just have to wait it out. This is the dreaded writers’ block that we all console each other about.
We are lucky that there is a limit of one idea per month. In the future we will be drowning in writers. The people at the Australia Council’s Emerging Writers program have told me that in a short time all working people in Australia will retire early while still mentally and physically fit and healthy and in sound financial circumstances to become novelists.
We are going to need more ideas than ever before.
You are right of course, Ken. I’ve been so busy finishing off using all my own story ideas that I had almost forgotten the wonderful service you outline so clearly. I haven’t personally had to use this helpful facility but I suspect a few of my writing friends certainly have – no wonder their stories always get accepted or win prizes ahead of me!
You mention the Emerging Writers’ program – I find this prospect both exciting and frightening. Exciting because of all of the new writers I’ll have to read, and frightening because the price of a good idea will most certainly escalate exponentially.
Could be a niche market in the making!