Influence and Inspiration

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, 

and their names were--Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter....

My mum keeps a collection of Beatrix Potter books on the shelf at home. When writers block takes hold with two hands, or a character falls to the floor in dust I turn back to the moth eaten pages of those book and read the simple stories, and it is here I remember the beauty of language. The stem of my inspiration.

It is not the words you write down on the page but the meaning they are given, the sound of peter rabbit losing his jacket under the fence brings in my mums voices and the soft duvet wrapped around me. So I guess I look to what I know for inspiration and in the reverse the things I know nothing about.

Taking a walk through the park or into town fills me with as much, if not more inspiration as any lecture at university. Beatrix Potter said "thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed of some of the originality" and so I think it is true, you do not look to the classroom for inspiration. Instead you look to the mystery’s that you imagine you understand.

Emily Dickinson knew little of the outside world due to her personal confinement so she looked for the things she could image to make sense of, often the newspapers. Many critics say Dickinson was inept at writing war poetry and she knew nothing of it, I offer that she read from the newspapers and understood enough that her imagination filled in the blanks. It is called fiction because it is not designed to be real, whether it has some truth to it or not becomes irrelevant. You call it fiction so you allow for surreal improvisations.

Influence is a tricky word as almost anything can influence you and frankly, almost everything does. Consciously or unconsciously inspiration is a clear portrayal of your path as a writer, the stages and writers you go through build up your very own big shoes, which you must learn to shape and mould to become a perfect fit for your very own feet.

Arrange and compose, Your audience is waiting ....

We're Invisible!?!

A writer is invisible! It is the persona that is created that readers see. We are given a pre-created idea about what a writer is like, a publisher or agent gives us personality traits and interesting facts which we understand to be the writer. It is irrelevant what the writer is really like we rely on the information that we receive to inform our decisions.

J.K Rowling was told she had to use her initials when writing the famous Harry Potter, so she would not limit her audience to just girls. She doesn't even have a middle name. Banksy is an anonymous writer with one of the best most controversial reputations, and no one knows who he is. He’s probable a very ordinary bloke but we are more interested in the illusive man who hides behind a mask and comes out at night full of controversy.

Whether a writer should or shouldn't be invisible is irrelevant because they already are, we hide behind the pages of our books like nerdy girls with glasses and we show people what we want them to see. Whether that is your own personal life story or only your eye colour, it’s a personal choice how much your audience knows about you. 

Arrange and compose, your audience is waiting….

“I’ve been homesick for a country I’ve never seen and longed to be where I couldn’t be”

Gale Cengage pinpoints Cheever’s “Speciality is the American male’s confusion of identity and loss of social equilibrium” he write characters who are struggling with themselves and struggle with the world around them for example Neddy in The Swimmer, who appears unable to come to terms with his social decline.

Hanif Kureishi describes Cheever as a “never content with himself”, “a loner who loved both men and women …made his crazy…since it was convention for a young man to make a choice”. It seems to me that the characters and writer seem to share a few qualities, but the question is does this distract from the narrative itself.

As an ignorant of Cheever until starting this module, I began reading some of his stories and was caught up in the honesty and truth of them. This I believe comes from Cheever projecting his own feelings onto his characters, something I think is unavoidable for a writer anyway. But by Cheever having his own internal struggle he creates a real struggle for the character which give them authenticity.

The weakness and flaws of Cheever are the reason his writing is so successful because they are the weakness of so many people then and now to different degrees that they become timeless and relatable. So I think the intimate relationship Cheever has with his character only heightens the effect of the stories.

Arrange and compose, Your audience is waiting…

Attempt at the New Yorker style...

The radio crackled in the distance. She tried to listen but she couldn't make sense of the words. She tried to focus on the strong cup of coffee burning her nose as well as her hands. He had finished, she could tell but her eyes were firmly fixed to the clasped cup, he would have to speak first.

"You can't" the radio was silent.

She looked up as someone whacked it and the jazz beat continued. He was still looking at her.

"I have to" the silence was long and painful like the ones in those movies, where there is no music as they do a close up of a heartbroken woman as the director decides the fate of her lover.

His blue eyes pieced through her, she instantly regretted looking up.

“Why?" She had not prepared for so blunt a question.

"It's what's right" He flung the newspaper across the table

"Nothing about this is right!"

"You have to look beyond the..."

"There is nothing beyond!"

"There is so much more. Please you can’t say ..."

"I gave you my word, though I'd burn the blasted word if I could"

She gathered up the newspaper under her arm.

"Thank you"

She walked away, left him with his head in his head. The door swung closed and she took a deep breath.

"One down"

There were three more stops. The high street was quiet for a Sunday afternoon. A few locals pottered about. She smiled politely at Mrs Jarvis. She chatted to Mr Davies. Mrs Eslington asked after her mother. To each she smiled sweetly and tucked the paper further under her arm.

It was her home this little town, the clothes swap on the corner, the butchers and the bakers, and home at the end of the lane.

 The big building at the end of the street was the Mayors house. White and imposing on the brick built town. It had been covered in bright paint on numerous occasions during the war, but now it seemed people had more important things to do.

She turned down a side street and pulled out her little glass mirror. Her hair still perfectly intact, her eyes only a little blood shot. It would wear off by the time she got there. Placing the glass back in her bag she lent down, lifted up her skirts and started to hoist up her stockings.

It was at this moment that Mrs Jenkins walked around the corner.

"My dear if it isn't little Abigail whatever are you doing?"

"Mrs Jenkins! Oh I merely dropped a penny"

She imitated picking up a penny before subtly straightening her dress.

"How is your mother dear? Sick last time I heard?"

"She is rather better thank you, struggling without Charlie"

"Oh of course my dear. Do send her my love and my promise that I will pop round to see her next week. What’s that you have under your arm?"

Creative licencing

Truth is one of those indefinable, fickle words. We can say it is honesty, but whose version of truth do we listen to? Different things in our lives affect us differently so we each react to situation in individual ways; it’s open to interpretation.

And so it seems with literature we can look into the life and soul of an author and still know nothing about their writing. 

Emily Dickinson wrote all of her poetry in the first person but we cannot read every single line as a personal truth of hers, we cannot understand to what degrees she was being honest with her own feeling and what was influencing her at the time.

 It’s unavoidable for writers to not project parts of themselves onto their writing, the same way an artist cannot hide themselves with their paintings.

Friedrich Nietzsche said “There are no facts, only interpretations.” The same applies to truths and so there is most definitely truth to the stories we tell of our lives, but we choose the truths.

As for fiction it is all a case of interpretation and endlessly trying to understand something that you will never find the answer for …. So basically living life.

Here is an Intervention of Emily Dickinson’s poem “My life had stood - a loaded gun” the way I interpret it:

“My life had stood – a loaded gun

But for his eyes to see

In corners –till a day

He saw me waiting there

The owner passed- identified

But it was he that

Carried me away”

Arrange and compose, your audience is waiting…..

I'm a Writer?

At university today we were all asked how we became Writers, Well until that point I wouldn't have classified myself as a Writer at all. I like to write and I one-day hope to be a Writer but what in fact would classify me as being a Writer? Getting published it seems is always a key factor, for as a society we see being a Writer as a profession.

Emily Dickinson had a mere twenty poems published during her lifetime out of her seventeen hundred written. So maybe that is the key to becoming a writer, we must all die! It seems today the best way to become published is to become a journalist where, unless you make a bloody big mistake, no one knows who you are, or you write a shockingly controversial novel about sex.

I started writing because I struggled a lot at school and a wise person once told me to keep a diary, it didn't matter what I wrote just as long as I practiced my English. I started to think about what else I could write, interesting bits of conversation, or something hilarious that I’d seen. Then I would imagine more exciting things than my mundane little town.

This I suppose is how I became a Writer. Although I still don’t think I will really call myself a Writer until there is a publication with my name on it but until then I will be a student of the pen, an aspiring writer. I do now believe that in fact anyone can be a writer whether a ten year old writing a story about her dog or a sixty year old telling his life story.

Rene Descartes said, “I think therefore I am” and so be it. Being a writer is a choice, a lifestyle choice as much as choosing a dress or a new house. To follow your dreams, or follow what you’re good at or just to follow a train of thought. Statistics say that most aspiring writers won’t make it. Well unless they develop amnesia and forget how to write it seems to me they have already made it.

I think I am a writer and so I am. I make the conscious decision to struggle through a penniless lonely existence living in a shoe box until that manuscript happens to fall at the right time onto the right desk, and crash! Bang! Wallop! My hopes and dreams are fulfilled.

But until that time, my shoe box will be filled with fairies and dragons and trees that grow upside down, cats that wear suits, never ending cupcakes and most importantly an endless supply of paper and ink.

Arrange and compose, You audience is waiting...