Writing – how and when
Ideas come and ideas go.
I find that I am often inspired by something, and that could be anything from a TV programme, news report, photo, memory, song or talking with someone, or else they come out of the blue. When I get an idea I want to write it straight away. It is almost a compulsion. But usually this is inconvenient. If I don’t capture it then it is often gone forever. Sometimes I can return to an idea and recapture the feel and enthusiasm, often I cannot.
I take to walking about with a notepad and collecting my ideas. That usually works. I sit in front of the TV with a notepad near by. I have another at the side of the bed. Sometimes I have a few poems on the go and sometimes one will spark up and generate a few straight off. I often work from my notes. Though I sometimes find that when an idea is ‘fresh’ in my mind the whole piece flows out on to the page and is bright and easy. If I have to note it down and get back to it then it is sometimes clunky and does not flow.
I get bored easy and like to keep a few projects going simultaneously so that I can move between them as the mood takes me. At this moment in time I have eight writing projects for books and I am reading two books. It is somehow compartmentalised. I can do that with rewrites or factual books, anecdotes and poems – if the concept is already there or the pieces are short and self-contained. I could not do that with a novel. That requires complete focus and attention and all of the capacity of my mind. I hold a novel in my head like a huge jigsaw puzzle.
The idea for this piece for this piece of writing came to me yesterday evening just as I was going to bed. I jotted it on an old envelop which I discovered this morning. I had already forgotten about it.
The things that inspire me are varied. They could be something beautiful or something that has moved me. They could be ideas. You can see the range from a look through my blog or my books. I write about what I am interested in, what angers me, or what fills me with despair, or what I find humorous and intriguing.
Writing is fulfilling for me. It is a compulsion that I find is necessary for my sanity. It gives me great pleasure. I also write as a means of communication and to change the things I am appalled by. By sharing we grow, we understand and we impact on the world around us.
I believe we can change the zeitgeist and make the world a better place.