Tag Archives: inspiration

Inspiration underload

Posted on by
Reply

There are days when words flow like wine, ideas are like buses and the air is pregnant with inspiration. In contrast, there are days when the very process of sentence construction feels like the literary equivalent of wading through quicksand, and brain activity is so non-existent a doctor might well switch off the monitor were it not for the fact of the walking and talking aspects of the person still being intact. On those latter days of which I speak, the air is no so much pregnant with inspiration as thick with the cloying unease of guilt, one of the less conducive emotions to successful writing endeavours.

Today, you may already have guessed, is one of those days, in part because I’ve once again lacked the discipline to work to office hours – having spent the morning running and procrastinating before a friend popped over for lunch and we both spent a considerable portion of the afternoon nattering and sunbathing. Though, in my defence, she is a very old friend whom I have not seen in a very long time – and in part because I’ve just not been feeling the inspiration in the way I did last week. You could argue that I’ve hardly given myself the chance to find inspiration in the first place, having spent less than two hours actually sitting at my desk today, and your argument would indeed be valid. But I would nonetheless pig-headedly argue that sometimes days like this are required in order to find inspiration again. And also that spending time with friends and in the sunshine is beneficial to one’s health, if not one’s bank account or future as a celebrated author.

I’m going to blame the heat, though as I type these words I am mentally flagellating myself for making so many excuses for something that, as my inner critic is telling me at this very moment, is really very simple: If you want to be a writer, the voice says, pull up a chair, switch on your laptop, switch off your phone, switch off the internet, sit down, and write. Write until your fingers go numb, until it has got dark outside and you hadn’t even noticed. Write until every last seed of an idea has tumbled from your brain onto the page and taken root. Write as if your life depended on it. Just write. Because isn’t that what you profess to want to do? I have to admit the voice has got a point. Perhaps I’ll be more productive once the heat wave has abated…

Thinking about it, maybe best that I don't live in a hot country after all...

Why we should be proud of our young people

Posted on by
Reply

This afternoon I accompanied two senior members of my charity’s youth-led consultancy board (a group of Teens and Toddlers graduates who now help other young people to continue their personal and professional development, as well as themselves being helped by the charity on an ongoing basis through initiatives like corporate mentoring, work placements and signposting to relevant opportunities) to the Hackney University Technical College in order to do some filming for an exciting new youth initiative (which we’re not yet at liberty to discuss in the public arena). [As an aside, one of the two people I went with also now happens to be my colleague, which goes to show what a great job the charity does in helping young people to develop!]

The filming was coordinated entirely by year 10 students, and it was so incredibly inspirational to see how professional and focused they were, from the cameraman to the interviewer and everyone in between. What I personally found particularly uplifting was watching our young people talking to the students about how the charity had helped them, and seeing how enthusiastic they all were about this project and the prospect of working together in the future.

There will always be the odd down day in any job, but if ever I needed a reminder why I do this job it was this afternoon’s experience. This kind of frontline interaction is exactly what I’ve felt was missing in my previous jobs, and it’s both a privilege and an honour to be able to work closely with such fantastic young people on a regular basis.

Anyone with doubts about the future of today’s youth need only look to our YLCB and the Hackney UTC students to see there’s still so much to be hopeful about. Far from being a lost cause, on the basis of what I witnessed today we have every reason to be proud of the younger generation. Many of them are the leaders of tomorrow, and I have high hopes they’ll achieve great things.

Writer’s block

Posted on by
1

The blank page sits and waits. It does not judge as the writer hesitates, procrastinates and makes another cup of coffee. It is bemused, however, by the writer’s seeming inability to do the one thing they proclaim to love. What, it wonders, is so hard about putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard? The ideas are there, after all. The font of inspiration never runs dry, not really. The very notion is a construct of the human mind, so small in its thinking, so closed. In reality inspiration is a boundless well, but writers in particular are so shackled in their own self-doubt they fail to see the truth: That it is quite within the realms of possibility for them to lower the bucket whenever they choose.

Perhaps, the blank page muses, the writer is like a fountain pen, the ink being inspiration and the nib the point at which the creativity unfolds. When the fountain pen is first used it must be shaken to activate the ink. Only then can the ink trickle down to the nib where the two can connect and create words. Yes, thinks the blank page with a degree of smugness. That must be it. The writer is like a fountain pen that needs shaking. If only I could be the one to shake them. But alas, I am but a blank page, a canvas for the elusive words the writer struggles so much to produce.

The writer paces, sipping coffee and muttering indecipherable words. From time to time they stop and stand, quite still, in the middle of the room, like a cat that has been startled by an aggressor. They stare intently at a spot far in the distance, their eyes backlit by a fire of recognition that is stirring deep within the chasm of their mind. Then quite as suddenly their gaze softens, they lose focus, and they continue pacing, back and forth, this way and that.

The blank page sighs to itself. Watching the writer tie themselves up in knots is frustrating. It listens to the clock ticking and the twittering of birds outside the window. Still it waits, and still the writer does not write. More coffee, a telephone call, a conversation with the next door neighbour about shrubs; the blank page starts to think it will always be like this, an empty canvas, a possibility of greatness but no more. It feels sad.

But just as the blank page is about to give up hope, the writer strides purposefully back into the room and sits down at the desk. They roll up their sleeves, pick up their fountain pen, and begin to write. Or at least they attempt to write, but find that in this latest absence from writing the fountain pen has dried up. They shake the fountain pen and eventually the ink begins to flow. And as the words begin to wrap themselves around the blank page it thinks to itself, you see? The well of inspiration has been here all along. Now lower your bucket and drink.

Past Post: Story Time (re-posted from yesterday due to technical issues!)

Posted on by
Reply

It’s almost seven when I pull the front door closed behind me and hear its reassuring click. If it could speak it would be telling me I’m safe, nothing can harm me now. Let’s pretend, it would continue, that the outside world never even existed. Just for tonight, let’s pretend.

My brown Italian leather bag slides off my shoulder and lands in a crumpled but delicate heap on the floor. I kick off my shoes and walk down the hall into the kitchen, sniffing the lemon-scented air. The sheets are hung, the draining rack emptied. The cleaner has been.

I cook on autopilot, chopping peppers and chilis, throwing them into a frying pan and watching as the yellow flame laps hungrily at its base. I leave it unattended as I go to run a bath, catch sight of my reflection in the bathroom mirror and wince. The day is etched on my face with alarming clarity.

This is my fourth consecutive stir fry, I realise as I swallow the last overcooked morsel of Quorn, flick off the banal television programme I was barely even watching and take my bowl into the kitchen to wash up. I run the water for too long, watch as the soapy suds spill over the bowl and into the pan beneath. I refill the draining rack, dry my hands. As I walk past the fridge I stop, consider a glass of wine, then think again.

My mind is racing as I sink beneath the surface of the water. I lie there motionless, like a hippo in a watering hole, watching as the steam rises up and curls around and back in on itself.

I know it’s time, and yet I hardly dare entertain the thought of doing what I’m about to do.

I drain the bath, pat my hair dry with a towel and slip into my fluffy robe and slippers, padding softly down the hall into my bedroom. For a fleeting moment I entertain the thought of putting on mascara, lipstick, perhaps even a touch of blusher, but then dismiss the idea as ridiculous. What would be the point?

The bedroom door scratches across carpet, then clicks into place like the last piece of a jigsaw. I turn the key softly in the lock, dim the light. I pick up the box of matches on the bedside table, strike one and light the candles. The room is filled with dancing shadows and the cloying scent of vanilla. It tickles my throat and makes me nauseous. Or is it the fear that makes me nauseous?

I bury the fear in the pit of my stomach and kneel down, reaching underneath the bed for the box and stroking its walnut veneer as I pull it out. Questions rise up within me like a volcanic eruption. I suppress all but one. What if?

My hand is shaking as I turn the ancient key in the lock. It opens with a serpent’s hiss and I swallow hard. I know what’s coming. It’s judgement day.

I lift the lid and suddenly the air is flooded with a heady combination of dust and profanity.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?”

“We could have died in there!”

“Cooped up like that all this time – it’s worse than prison!”

A bubble of relief rises up inside me and I laugh.

“Well that’s just brilliant! Now look at her – she’s laughing at us!”

 I look down at dishy doctor Dan, standing proud in his starched white coat, arms folded across his chest as he glowers at me with all the square jawed impudence he can muster. From behind him Tess steps into view, her blonde hair tumbling down over her shoulders like a waterfall. She echoes her husband’s defiant pose.

“Look,” I begin with a shrug, searching their tiny faces for some glimmer of forgiveness but finding none, “I’m sorry, okay?”

“Well maybe sorry isn’t enough this time,” comes a shrill voice from the far side of the box. I search out its owner, unsure after all this time of to whom it belongs. My eyes, adjusted to the candle light, alight upon a slender figure clad in a silk kimono cocktail dress.

“Jacqueline, my favourite villain,” I say, my smile filled with genuine warmth.

“Don’t favourite villain me,” she sniffs, keeping her steely gaze on mine. “Where were you?”

I lower my hand into the box. She regards it with the cool conviction of the criminal mastermind that I know her to be, then steps up onto it. I lift her up until she is level with my eyes.

“I am sorry,” I say again, conscious that my words are scant consolation after what I have put her through – what I have put them all through. “Really, I am. It’s just that, well, life got in the way.”

I scan the sea of tiny faces, feeling the warm familiar glow of recognition as each one comes into focus. Lithe-limbed Amelia, purple-haired Clarice, kind-hearted Albert. How could I have left them for so long? What was I thinking?

“Well come along then,” Jacqueline snaps suddenly, wrenching me from my reverie. I look at her, my eyes unfocused, and blink uncomprehendingly. “Put me down,” she hisses. I do as she says.

“Right,” says Albert, stepping forward from the assembly line, his walking stick tapping on the bottom of the box as a wide grin spreads over his weathered old face. “I think it’s about time you picked up where you left off, don’t you?”

I smile back, and a cheer erupts from the tiny crowd beneath me. My crowd. My characters. It’s story time.

The Disney Princesses were my first literary loves, so they had to feature in this post..

Never too old

Aside

Never one to turn down a free ticket (or, let’s be honest, a free anything), last night I went along to a gig at Barfly in Camden. In truth I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. Despite my dad having been a talent scout in the music industry when I was a teenager I’ve never considered myself to be part of the in-crowd where new and emerging artists were concerned. Whenever I went to a gig I’d stand at the back in my River Island jeans and H&M top, clutching a pint of cider and feeling beyond awkward as I watched all the hipsters in their drainpipe jeans and black-rimmed glasses bopping away at the front, collectively pouting as their directional hair valiantly fought the forces of gravity.

It wasn’t a conscious decision to stop attending gigs, more of a natural progression. So when I was offered a free ticket to last night’s event I was forced to re-examine my position. Was I really up for spending three hours standing in a dingy room above a pub, face-in-armpit with a bunch of hairy hipsters? Did I really want to re-live those awkward memories that had long since been buried? Surely now I was at an age where I knew what I liked and what I didn’t and this just happened to be something that I didn’t? Was it so wrong to admit that?

So, after considerable soul searching I went along to the gig. And it was dingy. And it was full of hipsters with directional hair, drainpipe jeans and black-rimmed glasses (has the trend not changed in a decade? Maybe I’m not so behind the times after all). But you know what? I had a fantastic night. The bands were brilliant, especially the last one, Slow Club, whose lead singer was just mesmerising. At the end she jumped into the crowd and sang a song standing directly in front of me. She didn’t have a microphone to amplify her voice but it didn’t matter as the crowd were so silent you could have heard a pin drop. It was quite, quite beautiful. And utterly inspirational – I even started formulating a character in my mind for my next story.

Afterwards we went downstairs for another drink (at 11pm on a school night – I really was pushing the boundaries!) and ended up dancing until midnight, casting off the restrictive shackles of ‘age’ (that I’ll admit I impose upon myself) and simply having some good old fashioned fun.

I learned something about myself – and life – last night. When you pigeonhole yourself because of silly things like age you close yourself off to new – and wonderful – experiences. And it’s only through new experiences that you can grow as a person (and, in my case, develop as a writer). Getting older doesn’t make us old, telling ourselves we’re too old to do things makes us old – so from now on I’m going to try and hold that in mind.

521619_10152733315880057_684364774_n

Time out

Posted on by
Reply

I probably shouldn’t admit to being short of inspiration today, but there you have it: My confession. It’s been a taxing start to the year, to say the least, and I’ve exhausted all of my energy stores – both mental and physical. Training for next weekend’s 16 mile run isn’t helping on the physical front, but it has at least given me a focus for which I’ve been grateful in my lower moments; hard as it is to get out and running when the axe of redundancy (or any other challenging life event) is hovering over your neck, it really is true what they say about exercise making you feel better. Though I’m still not convinced I’m going to enjoy tomorrow morning’s scheduled 12 mile run in the rain….

But this is not to be a negative post, far from it. I’ve found a new job that I’m itching to start, have already got some freelance irons in the fire and genuinely feel this period of change will be the making of me – I’m just looking forward to the change phase being over and the new phase being underway, because it’s the change phase itself that’s so very tiring.

Rather than go home and slump on the sofa this evening (as is my body’s inclination) I’ve decided to be proactive in beating the tiredness, and am planning a return to the Sivananda Yoga Centre in Putney for its evening Satsang class. The Centre is a branch of the ashram in Kerala (southern India) where I did a two week residential yoga course in 2011. Satsang is a free class which comprises a twenty to thirty minute group meditation session, followed by 45 minutes of mantra chanting and a talk on the philosophy of yoga. It sounds a bit crack pot, I’ll admit, but I actually find the whole thing very relaxing, and a great way to ‘switch off’ the mind after a long day or period of stress. To any disbelievers reading this post I will say only this: Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!

253850_10150652395545057_7385012_n

Writing this post reminded me of the few days post-ashram when I and two of my fellow ashramees [sic] spent a few days on the coast, in Kovalam. This pic was when we were still full of the enthusiasm of regular yoga practice – how times have changed (for me at least, I can’t speak for the others!)