Inspiration or imagination – or is it observation?

Books, Family Stories, Music... and my favourite gigs, My novels, People, The Easthope stories, The Radwinter series, Writing by Lois

I wonder which comes first inspiration or imagination – or is it observation? Who knows?  I guess there’s a case for each, and if I think of the novels I’ve written all three are part of what triggered the idea, what developed the characters and their stories and how they handled what happened to them – good, and not so good, and downright disastrous!

I mentioned yesterday that the Mavericks – the band not the sports team, had celebrated the 30th anniversary of an album:

“Happy 30th to What a Crying Shame, released today in 1994 🎂 This album would go on to change our lives, and lead to a career beyond our wildest dreams. Thank you all for sharing it with us, and continuing to listen and love these songs so many years later. We are beyond grateful! “

I came across them through the band my husband was in then, who performed one of the Maverick’s numbers. For some reason I though they were a Welsh country  band, and only after I bought the CD ‘What a Crying Shame’ discovered they were from the USA.  At that time the internet was in its infancy and I could only find out more about the band through cover notes. I wrote yesterday about my thoughts and imaginings about the four men, had no idea what instruments each played, or which name belonged to which man.

I’d long had the idea of writing a novel about a family. I am so lucky with my family of cousins, I love them all and even though we live hundreds of miles apart I feel very close to them and take every opportunity to meet up. I will next see them when we go on holiday together again. Obviously I wasn’t going to write about my family, but I had this idea of the bonds which some have which though strained to the utmost, can still sustain.

The two ideas – four blokes in a band, four blokes in a family began to come together and after a few years (and many Mavericks gigs) I began to write. The story of the Portbraddons unfurled through the eyes of the girlfriend of one two other minor character cousins, who met the family one Christmas when they were all snowed in while staying in grandma’s huge house. I confess – I borrowed the real band’s faces, so Alex looked like Raul, the twins Nicky and Tyrone looked like Paul and Robert, and the oldest cousin Antoine was borrowed from Nick (the only name to overlap into my fiction) The personalities of my fictitious cousins were totally imagined! Another long-held idea, another family, a quartet of brothers, Marcus, Paul, John and Thomas, and the story was about family history research. These brothers had the faces of a chef, a cook, a guy who worked in our local bookshop and a Danish actor.  I had imagined them as brothers, and after they had lurked in my imagination for several years, I managed to tell their story, and they became the Radwinters.

The surnames of the Portbraddons and the Radwinters,  came from real places, Portbraddon from Portbradden in Northern Ireland, and Radwinter from a village in Essex. So inspiration for both these novels, developed by imagination, sprang in part from observation!

Lucky portbraddon cover

radwinter paperback

You can find these on Amazon as paperbacks and on Kindle.

12 Comments

    1. Lois
      Reply

      Maybe to an extent, but inspiration to me is a thought which might be generated by noticing or realising something unexpected which will trigger creativity. Imagination to me is working round that observation or inspiration and developing or extending it, playing with it, following it, and then fashioning it into something else!

      Liked by 1 person

      2. Lois

        It’s interesting how different people write, where they start from, what preparation (even only mental prep) they do. Some people plan meticulously, and know the course of their story before they begin writing it – I never know where mine is going, and sometimes when I think I do, something unexpected happens. Sometimes it’s almost as if the characters make their own choices and decisions independent of me!!

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      3. Forestwood

        I was at a presentation yesterday by an accomplished author and teacher. He said the beauty of writing is that it is organic. To can rewrite and change the whole theme at chapter 5 if to wish. My stories sometimes evolve into a different beast but I usually start out with one or two main ideas.

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Lois

        A belated happy Australia Day to you – having just read your post! We were in Tas for six weeks several years ago and it was Australia Day while we were there 🙂 We went from there to Brisbane for a week with a friend, and he took us out into a jungly place and warned us about the gympie-gympie… I’d not expected even the plants to be able to kill you!!

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      8. Lois

        Gosh, so many! I just loved every moment of it, it was absolutely wonderful. I guess visiting the synagogue which my great-great grandfather helped to found was very special. But so many other things, everyone was so friendly and pleasant, we loved the fact there was art everywhere, the museums, the pub near our hotel we visited most nights, the bookshops, the food,wine and whisky… I would so love to come back and visit again!

        Liked by 1 person

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