Inspiration

With the snow recently the writing meeting today was cancelled.

When I eventually woke up this morning (nearly 10 am) I was a bit down.

This soon turned into I am going to get up no matter what and see what today brings.

Expecting someone to give us a quote for the shower room at 11 am today. Yes it has been a long time ago since the Welsh Dresser arrived and the tiles were stripped off the wall to let it dry out. Things never move very quickly in this house. I get the ideas and spout them and eventually they get acted on.

The door bell rang at 10.30 am. I thought the builder was keen. No it was the postman with two parcels for me.

As you can see from the picture Di had inspired me but so had Writing Magazine with an advert for The Oldie and as I had not been feeling too happy recently treated myself to a subscription of the said magazine with offer of the annual (free) for taking out said subscription.

On opening the annual I discovered this ".............. I hope that readers of this book may feel inspired to try their hand at writing something. I can promise that it will be careful consideration and - if you're lucky - may actually appear in print."

So there you have it. Inspiration to write.

Not only did The Oldie arrive but so did Fast Fiction. This will be read in depth before I try anything.

I know I can write letters, but can I really write short stories? I will see where this leads. I did submit one last year to a competition but even I can see it wasn't good enough against those that got placed.

I will have to improve.

If I don't try I will never know.

I can imagine Sue standing in the workshop the clock saying ten to twelve and saying you have five minutes to do this now get on with itotherwise we won't finish on time. Three, two, one go. Simon would be there with his stop watch timing us all.

I wonder how many of us have books that really inspire us to write. Mine is Jane Wenham Jones "Wannabe a Writer".

Without her tips I would not have had the courage to write so many letters to the national press.

I am lucky to have found such a wonderful supportive group and even though we haven't met up today I am really looking forward to the next meeting.

I hope this post has inspired someone to find some inspiration from somewhere to do some writing, send it off and who knows what we will be reading in the future.

Last night chatting to a young friend of mine, we were talking about Enid Blyton. Now there is someone whose writing was popular and I think still is with all generations as I loved the Noddy annuals, Malory Towers, St Clares, The Famous Five and the mystery books she wrote.

When my husband saw the conversation he hadn't heard of St Clares. I showed him a link to the series and explained what it had been about and why I had loved it.

Who knows I may even get to read the stories again this time with the view of a writer rather than a reader. Now what do I mean by that? I mean how did Enid get the images together so that the reader could gather images in their head to realise the story and get the full impact of it. How does the writer get the reader to relate to the characters?

If this isn't inspiration to write and read I don't know what is.

Anyway I will love and leave you for now while I go bury my head in the annual (to have a good a laugh) and to see if I could write anything for that magazine. Also will try my hand at the fast fiction exercises once I understand what I am meant to be doing.

Best wishes to you all.

Fee