0 Italy -Images, scents, stray bits of conversation - Linda Strachan

When I am writing everywhere I go, everyone I meet and everything I hear someone say has the potential to feed into my story, particularly when it is a place removed from my everyday life and experiences.  When I travel I find images, scents, stray bits of conversation take seed and create stories of their own.


I've just returned from a week in the south of Italy where I visited family many times as a child, and over the years since but I'd not been there for a few years. 
I have returned, my head full of all the different characters and situations I encountered, conversations, tastes and sounds.


I was staying with family and that meant I was not a tourist, just skimming the surface and seeing the tourist sights.  I chatted to two different couples at the airport one the way there and the other on the way back. Both couples were on holiday to Rome to enjoy the Italy of the holiday brochures and I was aware of how different their experiences and perceptions of Italy, and the Italians, are to mine. 

I, too, enjoyed the beautiful blue skies and scenery and of course the wonderful food - a very important part of life there. I also fed my creative brain on the differences in culture, the language and particularly the use of language - the ways that expressions change from one language to another and where direct translations can be quite humorous. 

But for me there were also the discussions that happen in families and amongst friends and acquaintances about everything from Italian politics, the economy, the corruption and their perceptions of world affairs, to the moans about day to day life and memories of family who have now sadly passed away.   

I often find it frustrating as a wordsmith when I do not have quite the facility with words that I am used to in English - my Italian is conversational and my vocabulary is not really as extensive as I would wish. But thankfully, it was adequate to join in conversations and to understand most of what was being discussed, except at times when the speaker's language was thick with dialect!

I was able to spend time writing beside a cosy log fire  - it is January after all - although to me it was like a Scottish spring, bright and sunny most days with a bit of a chill in the air, but most people there thought it was very cold!


I met some people who will make colourful characters, some so 'colourful' that they and their view of life may seem hardly credible to most people. Those are the most interesting to store away for future use.

Michela

I had a horse riding lesson and I learned even more when I acted as translator for someone who only spoke English and came for a riding lesson. I found out a lot about looking after horses, too. As far as I am concerned nothing is wasted because basically everything is research! 

This is Michela.
A delightful character who was hand-reared when her mother died giving birth to her.  She appeared to have an opinion about almost everything, if only I could speak Donkey! I am sure she deserves a story of her own.

When chatting to an old aunt, I was told forcefully several times not to forget that she expected me to write the story of her and her siblings and parents, so that the future generations would not forget them all. I suppose that is the wish of many older people who see their own time and family becoming part of a forgotten past as the new generations appear. By the time the younger ones are old enough to ask questions so much is often lost and forgotten. It will be interesting to write something about the family members like my aunt and her parents, just for the family, to record these people and their lives. 

Back home now I am distilling my thoughts and memories, images and ideas.  I managed to get quite a bit of writing done while I was away and now I am keen to get back to the book again.  My head is full of memories of crisp blue skies, lovely food and strong coffee, as well as stray thoughts in Italian, as my brain tries to switch gear back to English! 

Travel, as has been often said, broadens the mind and it creates great images and ideas to feed the soul and the creative mind.  
So now it is time to get back to my desk and use all that inspiration!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linda Strachan is the author of over 60 books for all ages from picture books to teenage novels and the writing handbook Writing For Children  

She has written 10 Hamish McHaggis books illustrated by Sally J. Collins who also illustrated Linda's retelling of Greyfriars Bobby

Linda's latest YA novel is Don't Judge Me  

Linda  is  Patron of Reading to Liberton High School, Edinburgh 

website:  www.lindastrachan.com
blog:  Bookwords 

Detail: Italy -Images, scents, stray bits of conversation - Linda Strachan

0 Creative Energy and Space - Linda Strachan

It takes energy to be creative, and a certain amount of space in your head.

To bring ideas out into the light of day and shape them, change them, discard some and let others blossom.  Making hundreds of little decisions, and some big ones. To decide which ideas are worth pursuing and which are only half-baked. To hold onto the reins of a story that is burgeoning and almost out of control, takes strength of will and the time and energy to see it to the end. There is then the sheer physical task of getting those words or images down in print, paper or computer.

It is not easy having an idea, or a whole pot of ideas, that stumble and crash into each other like bubbles, as you try not to burst or lose them. The ache as they disappear into the ether, slipping away before they are fully grasped or remembered, leaving hardly a scent of themselves - lost forever.
Sometimes they stick together and at other times are subsumed into one huge mass often unwieldy mass that needs careful cutting or shaping and at times brutal harsh editing.

Corralling them into a story, or a novel is not a simple process. Moulding the ideas that crop up almost out of nowhere, shaping the characters and plot, worrying about whether what you are creating has any worth at all.

All this requires creative energy.

It is hard work, not like scrubbing a floor or digging a ditch but concentration, sometimes head-in-hands exasperation and, thankfully, moments of sheer joy!
Ideas can be forced by a deadline and that constraint will at times produce an unexpectedly interesting result but there are other times when the chaos of daily grind, surroundings and distractions, however lovely or interesting, can make it so much more difficult.

A room of one's own, a place of quiet seclusion where the writer or artist can have all distractions taken away, to allow the mind to wander at will and the imagination to blossom, can make all the difference.









A walk alone where the waves lap at the shore...









or where the leaves flutter in the breeze...  



It  will let the imagination wander and often release a knot in the mind, letting the answer unravel in the subconscious.

At times like these it may be difficult for those around us who are not writers or artists to understand the need for that particular kind of peace and space.

While inside our heads our thoughts are wrestling with the problem, it may seem to the outside world that we are not actually working.
It may be difficult for others around us to  understand the kind of energy that is required to work the creative process.

That is why the company of other writers and artists is so important; those people who understand perfectly the stresses and strains involved and the drive to keep doing this amazingly wonderful, dreadful and compulsive thing we do.

There may be times when we cannot find that creative energy, for reasons as varied as there are people. But even in those times, which eventually pass, thoughts and ideas are lingering quietly in a corner waiting for the time when the creative energy returns.

It always does.

So give your creative energy time and space, and nurture it.  You know you want to!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linda Strachan is the author of over 60 books for all ages from picture books to teenage novels and the writing handbook Writing For Children.

She has written 10 Hamish McHaggis books illustrated by Sally J. Collins who also illustrated Linda's retelling of Greyfriars Bobby

Linda's latest YA novel is Don't Judge Me  and she is   Patron of Reading to Liberton High School, Edinburgh.

website:  www.lindastrachan.com
blog:  Bookwords 

Detail: Creative Energy and Space - Linda Strachan