Magpies and Well Filling

I believe writers are magpies. We collect shiny objects (interesting tidbits of conversation, mannerisms, images, snippets of research – whatever catches our roving eyes) without consciously being aware. Some of the time we note them down, but other times they drift to the back of our minds – seemingly forgotten. There they wait for the one thing that will pull them together or they become the gift of the subconscious mind.

For example, when I was researching A Cornish Affair I came across an old Cornish saying…save a stranger from the sea, he’ll turn your enemy. Ping. First there was instant conflict…it goes against what we assume. Then a setting that I’d always wanted to use – the cabin at the mouth of Frenchman’s Creek slipped into my mind and next I knew it was a story of a grandmother and granddaughter…the key building blocks for A Cornish Stranger were in place.

But it was in the writing process that the magpie treasure trove really came into play with sudden inspiration while at the keyboard. Things long forgotten came to my finger tips as if by magic…a fisherman’s smock, the sound of bamboo rustling, the twist in the tale.

As writers most of us have those moments when we get stuck – for five minutes or sometimes for days or even weeks. This normally happens because we don’t know what comes next or we know the next big scene, but not the event that will link to that big moment. Here is where our life as a magpie comes into its own and it normally happens when we walk, drive a car, do the ironing, take a bath or read someone else’s book.

Our minds are focused on something different (resting) and the subconscious begins to review all the sparkly objects to see what would work. Then when we next sit down to write- boom magic happens. Sometimes this process is painless and we don’t feel it – other times it takes virtual blood from a vein to make the magic happen.

The key thing is that it will happen, but we need to make sure that the well of the subconscious has been filled with shiny objects by listening and watching the world around us. READ, read anything and everything (women’s pages of the Daily Mail are essential reading for me along with history books, novels, magazines…). The lovely Kate Harrison recommend making files of things that catch your eye so that when you are trying to find or develop a new idea you can look back on these things to inspire you.

I also find that to feed my creative well I need to read craft books, which help me learn to express ideas, to tackle plotting from different angles, to structure my stories and to basically think about writing in a different way. Some days I try a writing exercise before I begin the work in progress – it may not be necessarily related but something to stretch the writing muscle in a different direction. This enhances the writing process so that then when I go back to the current novel it normally adds another layer to the writing.

Each novel I have written has been different – from domestic drama, to adventure, to suspense, to the one I’m writing at the moment – dual time line. Each book has drawn upon different parts of ‘the well’ and required new skills. A writer needs to take time to fill that well with stories, tidbits and all those other sparkly objects so that the words that come from the brain and the fingers will be individual to them – taking plots that have already been told yet making them new and unique through the subconscious filter.

—

Tags: Cornish Affair, featured, Liz Fenwick, romance, women writers, women's fiction

Category: On Writing