Inappropriate Inspiration

Dear Reader,

I have a question. Why is it that I always get my most inspiring, creative ideas when I'm trying to focus on my exams. Writing takes up a hell-of-a-lot of Time, that time that I don't have to give away. Because, surely you need to have something to give it away in the first place, unless you're some kind of con-artist, right? And believe me, I'm as far as from a con-artist as anyone can be. Confession: I have the most appalling acting skills. Out of a will completely of it's own, my face has a ginormous tendency to express whatever I'm thinking. I never did win a single staring contest as a child, and I've never even attempted to play poker (though I'm not so bad in other card games). 

Figure 1: Expressions often found on my face.

You see what I mean! Anyway, I have gone completely off topic. Unfortunately, true to my word last week, since the-night-before-last my brain has begun to formulate a lovely little short-romance story about the "nerdy-not-so-good-looking-but-with-real-substance-beneath-the-surface kind-of-a-guy". Though, after much consideration I believe the story has turned out to be more about the girl than the "hero", Henry Lionel Francis Grant, known to his friends as just plain-old-Lionel. It's set mostly in the beautiful Pennine-heart of Lancashire, with the time period being, keeping in style with Julia Quinn, the early 1800's. 

I don't actually know why I chose Lancashire. Maybe I wanted some place far removed from London, some place that was just beginning to sprout it's industrial wings, where the quite-country-life was just on the verge of extinction but not quite there yet. Together with the small green-brown peaks in the distant backdrop. And in the midst of all of that fatalistic-peace, will mature-stoic-Lionel be able to overcome the horrors of his past and accept that he has fallen in love with his young and industrious wife? Wow, that sounds extremely icky. I can't believe that I'm actually going to go ahead and write it. But being who I am, it can't be helped. Once I have a story in my head, it must be written down somewhere, even if it will be forgotten until a much, much later date. 

Not that I'm much of a romance writer, anyway. But then again, I can't say what genre-writer I am. You see, I've dabbled in all sorts of genres, which often relate to whatever it is I'm reading at the time, but adding my own flare to it. I think it began with the story of a teenage girl who finds out she's suffering from AIDs. That soon became a trilogy of three extremely different girls attending the same school (St. George's Secondary School and College) and are in the same year, so their stories are mildly interlinked. Each book is written in slightly different versions of diary entries. I think I had just finished reading The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot. Anyway, I was sitting my GCSE exams at the time. 

Then came the trilogy called "Chronicles by Anamika". Set in my own little world called Dinuriya (patent pending), consisting of everything from Demons, Dragons to Pirates. Again, the three separate stories were about three very different women, with a single common eccentric-denominator: the mysterious Anamika, who narrates all the Legends. I planned the entire trilogy while preparing for my A-level exams. I also happen to be reading all sorts of fantasy at the time, The Lord of the Rings, Eragon, Sabriel, The Wind Singer, Northern Lights, The Magicians Guild, The Gift, Across the Nightingale Floor to name but a few (Aside: have you noticed how they all form part of a trilogy or series). 

After that, there were a few minor projects here and there, and also a lot of poetry. But then there was the really BIG ONE (also the one that I have written most - i.e. that it's almost complete) which is a pseudo-biography of my some-what-alter-ego (it doesn't have much of a title yet, as you can tell). I wrote most of it at the time when I should have been getting all panicky about my end-of-year exams for my first year at university. It started out, actually, as a way for me to record memories of my time in College (like how normal people make photo albums), to explore my future options and the different paths that lie ahead of me. It was, after all, the period of time when a calm settles down within, after knowing you have made big decisions and finding them to be some-what successful. I can't remember exactly what I was reading at the time I began writing, but I know that I read a lot of the classics most of the year; books by Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Homer, George Elliot, the Brontë sisters etc..  

So that is the history of my unfortunate and inconveniently timed writing. If ever I get published, I hope you will have a look at it, maybe read it if it takes your fancy. Though at the rate I'm going, I'll probably only manage that after I die. That was a joke. You are permitted to laugh. I'm not nearly morbid or masochistic enough to get myself killed just to become famous; though that does seem to be the norm for some of our greatest writers, painters and poets.

Anyway, all these dire thoughts aside, I look forward to living out this week so that I may blog again next week. Wish me Luck. 

Nida