Inspiration from the
Common Wealth of Writers
To Boost Creativity
Commentary, Editing & Illustrations
By
Jacqueline Smith
Contents
Introduction.......……….………………………………………………………….2
Chapter One: How It All Begins….………………………………………….….5
Chapter Two: Early Inspiration…………………………………………………11
Chapter Three: Music & Laughter...………………….………………………..16
Chapter Four: Having Vision…………………….……………………………..24
Chapter Five: Received Wisdom……………………………………………....29
Chapter Six: Beckoning the Muse…..………………………………………....35
Chapter Seven: Just Sit Down and Write..…………………………………....39
Chapter Eight: Finding Your Voice…………………………………………......43
Chapter Nine: Crafting……………………………………………………….…..48
Chapter Ten: Last Words..……………………………………………………....58
The Common Wealth Writers….…………………………………………….….62
Notes………………………………………………………………………...........80
Credits……………………………………………………………………….........84
‘From a little spark
may burst a mighty flame.’
~Dante Alighieri (1)
Introduction
I have a deep interest in encouraging others to embrace their creative process with conscious awareness so that they can make the most of the talent and hard work that they pour into their literary and artistic efforts. I hope the commentary that frames the inspiring responses from the book’s contributors encourages readers and writers to happily consider that there are actions we can take to boost our creativity when it seems to be waning.
The book was inspired by and compiled from interviews carried out for a monthly poetry event featuring well-known published poets and writers including novelist and poet Kei Miller, playwright and poet Skye Loneragan and poet Liz Niven. Many of them hail from around the world but at the time were living in or around Glasgow, Scotland.
As I drew together the interviews, which were focused on aspects of crafting as well as inspirations and influences, I became more and more excited by the advice the writers offered. It struck me as essential to the creative process and having resonance for all writers - be they poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer etc., as indeed are many of the featured writers, though billed primarily as poets at the time the interviews took place.
Another outstanding theme was the variety of international origins and countries where the individual writers were either born or had travelled to. The writers’ origins and influences and the sharing of their work was in accord with the inclusive values that The Commonwealth of Nations seeks to encourage and promote.
The GlasgowLife team state in their Mission, Vision and Values on their website that: ‘We will be passionate in our work and encourage flair and creativity in all that we do.’(2)
We too, as writers, work with passion and that passion is the source of our creativity. We play and craft with words to inspire our fellow human beings.
The writers who participated in the interviews gave spontaneous first-hand testament to what has contributed to their development and success. The variety of their origins and influences has only served to enrich their creative process all the more.
Writers from America to Zimbabwe give details of the most formative influences and inspirations in their writing. They also share advice given to them as they began their writing life and advice they would offer to other writers. Most importantly, they offer insights into their own creative process. This impressed on me just how much common wealth in experience and skills exists between all of the writers. This seemed too rich, too inspiring, not to share.
There are several excellent Scottish poets featured. Many of them have been guests of other Commonwealth nations and beyond during their careers as writers, poets and playwrights through exchanges and for residencies, exporting and promoting Scotland’s own unique voice and literary heritage around the world.
I felt privileged to hear first-hand about each writer’s creative process which has subsequently helped my own writing and development work. It brought me to the realisation that sharing their fruits with other writers can only enrich each of our literary endeavours by positively influencing our destiny as writers. Let’s allow ourselves to be influenced, to be inspired and feel the joy of boosting our own creativity.
‘To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.’
~Truman Capote (3)
‘Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.’
~ George Bernard Shaw (4)
Chapter One: How It All Begins
Who or what started you writing? Was it a teacher, a parent, a book or an experience never forgotten that rumbles away like a rhythm that won’t let go, or an image that never dissolved? Recollecting our original inspiration, and approaching the origins of our fascination with words and stories, is a powerful tool to both inspire and motivate us as writers to keep going.
Here is what some of the Commonwealth writers remember about what first ignited their writing. Jamaican born novelist and poet, Kei Miller starts us off:
Kei - ‘…growing up in Jamaica I was always aware of the very strange man who would board the bus to preach and he’s absolutely insane, but there was something about his voice that I’ve always tried to capture and there is a kind of grandmother figure in the Caribbean and I’ve always been conscious of trying to incorporate that voice, and to me they’re as much a part of my kind of poetic heritage as more obvious written poets and yeah, I think I try to pay equal homage to a very kind of oral heritage.’
The images and sounds of his memories of place and culture were there for Kei and stayed with him to influence his later work. Our memories of place and people rarely leave us completely. Some remain vivid while others seem to drop into the corners of our mind like lost keys down the side of the sofa.
The following writer is an Australian playwright for whom memories and images are metaphorical.
Skye Loneragan: ‘With that journalist the question is put to you, ‘What in your own experience has inspired this story?’ I was saying, okay as a nine-year-old girl who’s recounting experiences…there’s one scene (In ‘Mish Gorecki Goes Missing’) where she’s holding up a family table ‘cause the leg is broken and they’re trying to move it when everyone is having an argument. That’s a metaphor obviously, I didn’t hold up the family table. My father had to deal with schizophrenia, but I didn’t actually row a boat to pick him up (In ‘Cracked’). It’s that fascination we have with - what is it in your experience that has led to this? I just find that so intriguing, that’s all.’
Even less-than-happy experiences and influences can be a source of inspiration ready to be transformed into new creations that help us share our unique interpretation.
On a lighter note, Viv Gee from Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh, who is also an excellent stand-up comedienne, remembers how she got started.
Viv Gee: ‘I started writing all the verses for (my friends’) mystery Valentines. But then everyone thought I (sent) all the cards! So, it was really crap and wee easy poems and it was all a bit silly. Then when I was sixteen I fell in love with this guy called Scott and that was great because it was a great name for writing poems…Scott, I thought/ you loved me a lot/. I still remember it.’
No doubt many of us started out in similar ways. Our cultural traditions are a reminder of where our inspiration can be plumbed from. A Scottish essayist and poet, tries to remember his initial inspiration:
Alan MacGillivray: ‘I couldn’t really say what made me start writing poetry. I’ve been writing poetry since I was at school and…I think my way into poetry was writing humorous poetry; ‘light’ verse and the point about writing ‘light’ verse is that it makes you very conscious of forms. So, I was writing very formal stuff. Lots of rhyme, rhythm; particular forms and really that’s what I was doing for a number of years. So, what made me start? I’ve no idea, but it’s just something coming from a love of reading, reading other poems and other verses, that really started me.’
What Alan remembers is what he read and that inspired a desire to create his own verse, his own poetry. His way of seeing the humorous side of life led him to study various forms of getting the words on the page, of bringing his poetry to life.
‘Seeds of Thought’ co-founder Tawona Sithole, is our Zimbabwean contributor and his writing also began at school but as we’ll find out, his primary inspiration came from the sharing of experiences.
Tawona Sithole: ‘I’ve enjoyed writing from an early age, but just doing it in terms of the school system; writing essays and somehow keeping the interest of enjoying writing, so it sort of evolves like that. To properly think about writing seriously, I think meeting other people who write as well, that was a big thing for me and sharing similar experiences, going through similar things and meeting others with notebooks; writing for no real apparent reason and finding that you do the same, and so that was quite an encouraging thing. That was how I really got into it.’
We’ll finish this chapter with one more writer who is also Editor of the Dark Horse American/Scottish Literary Magazine, and originally from Lancaster in England, recollecting how he began:
Gerry Cambridge: ‘I remember at the age of 16 or 17 when I was first getting into poetry of my own accord, I discovered an excerpt in 4-beat couplets by John Masefield, the English poet, from his poem ‘Reynard’s Last Run’ about a fox being chased. At that age what appealed to me about the poem was the galloping rhythm. I think for young folk, before your tastes have developed a bit, you go for something that is rhythmically strong.’
This takes us to the sense of hearing and the use of sound and rhythm, a powerful tool for any writer and to whose influence we’ll return. But isn’t it good to realise that we are carrying our creativity around with us in memories that can be re-cycled and re-created if approached as a source of inspiration?
Creative Inspirations One:
Spend fifteen minutes looking around with the eyes of a child. Remember that sense of wonderment, love of colour, surprise, curiosity and hunger to explore.
Write down your observations and the feelings that it stimulates and use the treasure found through this exercise to begin your next poem, chapter or scene.
‘There are powers inside of you which if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become’.
~Orison Swett Marden (5)
