Inspiration can come from many different places. Often a scene, an object, a moment in reality will set forth a stream of ideas that takes the mind on a journey far far away from where it started. Once, while lounging in a park on a beautiful summer’s day, minding my own business, a story decided to put itself into my head.
The story began in the very park I was sitting. In my mind I was transported to a whole new land with a young girl character who accidentally opened a doorway between two worlds. The beginnings of her adventures began to unravel as I sat there, playing through my head like a movie being played for only me to see.
In my mind the character wandered down a staircase to the beach to continue her journey. Just like that the story stopped. Completely. I wanted to know more, what happened next. There was a wooden staircase leading to the beach from the park I was lounging in, so I followed it down to the beach. The story continued playing out in my head as I wandered for hours along the beach. Returning home, I began writing furiously, not wanting to lose any part of what I’d experienced.
As the summer continued, the story continued to grow. Sometimes random scenes would pop into my head. I wasn’t sure how it all came together, but I’d write everything down, knowing it was important and would hopefully figure itself all out later. I even got a portable tape recorder to record my thoughts as I went, afraid that I would forget things with the fast stream of ideas and imagery that kept flying through my head.
Then one day the story just stopped. I hadn’t written anything for a couple of weeks. I didn’t understand. The story had just been coming to me so freely before. I just needed to be in the right place, I thought, but where was that? And why was I craving the smell of old books?
The tiny tourist town I was living in had a tiny library, with an even tinier archives room. I decided to literally surround myself with old books in the archives room. Here I stood, nothing but old artifacts and tonnes of old books everywhere I turned. I chose a chair and sat down. Nothing. I was beginning to wonder what I was doing there and starting to feel a little silly, thinking that old books were going to bring a story into my head. For some reason, one particular old volume stood out from the rest. There wasn’t anything particularly special that would make it stand out from the rest, but for some reason I was drawn to it. I picked it up off the shelf and opened it. My senses were flooded by the sweet smell of old worn pages and my head was transported to an ancient bookshop in another land where adventures were under way.
After that beautiful summer, things got very busy and stressful. I didn’t get back to writing for a couple of years. The new scenes that were coming to me then didn’t seem to mesh well with the ones I’d written down a couple of years before. They had one of the same characters, but it just didn’t make sense with the original story. They resonated the same way they had before though, and I wrote them all down. After a few months I realized how they all came together and that what I’d written previously was an introduction to an even bigger story. The story continues to grow and fill itself in, but I can’t wait to share it. It’s too good to just live in my own head. I’m sure it was put there to share.
Inspiration is all around us, if we allow ourselves to see it. Listen to the voice that feels like it knows instinctual wisdom. If it tells you to go somewhere because it’s important, do it. If you need to go open and smell an old book, then by all means do it. Who knows what lies within it’s pages?
