Streamwriting

How To Find Inspiration

A friend once gave me a piece of advice: ‘Absorb’. I was about to set off on a trip to Nepal and she meant that I should let everything I experienced on my journey sink into my body, filter through, become a part of me. I followed her advice and had the time of my life.

From then on, I decided to make that my everyday ‘motto’ - from the way a bird swoops down and almost hits the windscreen as I’m driving the car, to the way my body needs to stretch when I wake up in the morning. Everything can become a lesson, can provoke a sensation, even if it’s years later. This way of approaching life has helped me with my writing.

I’m an observant, visual and tactile person by nature. I enjoy examining objects, find I get a better sense of what I’m dealing with if I study it, touch it, and then ask myself how that made me feel, what thoughts it provoked. I write down things I notice when I’m out walking the dog, on a bus, in the supermarket. If, for example, I see a face I find intriguing, I’m afraid I will stare at the person whose face fascinates me. I then write down what it is that’s so striking about them. This rule applies to everything, not just people. These little scribbles usually find their way into my writing; they get tweaked and twisted to fit the character or setting I want to achieve, but they make it there. And that’s often commented on by readers. They find they can relate to what I write, feel like they’ve visited a place they’ve never been to, or know a character I’ve written about.

Writing can be very personal and isolating. And yet, it’s also about reaching out to people you’ve never met, wanting to show them a moment in time that you believe will inspire them, draw them into your imaginary (or not) world, pass on a piece of advice. Although an insular form of art, it’s a way of communicating ideas. Yes, it’s one-sided, but it’s also liberating and provoking - hopefully not only for the writer! It’s a way of saying: “Look, this is what it feels like to be experiencing this or that, but you might have experienced something similar. And maybe, reading someone else’s parallel experiences might make you realise that we’re all connected, we all share the same desires and hopes, we all dream the same nightmares. It might make you less lonely, less frightened, a part of something greater.” That’s what I like my readers to experience.

Observe the details around you. It’s the little things that add spice and meaning to your life. Pick up a stone, notice its weight, examine its texture, try to describe it in your mind, see how its colour changes when you wet it, look at it as a single stone in your palm and then picture it as one of thousands of pebbles on a beach. How does that change your perspective of this rock? How do you feel in relation to it? Observe all these details, and then absorb them. Let them sit in there for however long they need to ripen.

Nothing gets wasted, even the bits you reject, the parts you find don’t agree with you so much. They have their own role to play. Allow what you’ve absorbed to mature. And then use it. You’d be surprised at what you’ll feel you’ve gained and how close we are to one another.

So, absorb this. Let life amaze you.

Annia Lekka writes fiction for adults and children. Her writing is in the spiritual/magical genre. She has written one cross-over novella called ‘Fish Tail Mountain’ and is now working on one of three novels taking place in Istanbul at the turn of the last century. You can learn more about Annia and read some of her writing on her Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Annia-Lekka/82893230212?ref=ts