Have you ever looked through your family’s old photo albums or gone to a market or antique store and seen old photos for sale?
These photos can be very useful for character development or inspiration in your fictional stories.
You can use them for historical fiction as well as flashbacks within your contemporary story.
So next time you come across some old photos – look again as they might inspire you to write something which never crossed your mind.
I went and saw Gloria Steinem speak last month about her autobiographical new book “My Life on the Road” and she was phenomenally inspirational!
Gloria is someone I aspire to live my life like (speaking up and living her life according to her own rules) and these were some of her quotes which resonated with me that night:
“WE are the women our parents warned us about.”
“Not everyone has to live the same way. Imagine that.”
“We are not crazy. The system is crazy.”
“Racism and sexism might both be supremacist crimes, because you get nothing out of it but dominance.”
“The single greatest failing of feminism is that we’ve been too nice.”
Gloria Steinem – May 16th 2016, Melbourne Australia
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
The Emerging Writers Festival is happening in Melbourne, Australia next month.
The Emerging Writers’ Festival is a not-for-profit organisation whose foundations are built on supporting emerging writers. They are a place where creativity and innovation is celebrated, where new talent is nurtured and where diverse voices from across Australia are represented.
For all sessions and workshops check out their website here:
This surrealist’s art has always made me wonder at the “characters” within his art. They speak to me of places I’m too wary to travel to, whilst giving me insight into the complex nature of his perception of life.
This is my favourite Dali piece which is titled “Woman Aflame” .
It helps me momentary escape and explore infinite possibilities as a woman as I compartmentalize my responsibilities and dreams…I might be held up to society’s standards but that is just a crutch which I use to propel myself forward.
The first book I recall from my earliest memories as a child, is learning to read using Aesop’s Fables. I loved the simple story telling full of allegory and re-read them over and over again. Filled with moral and ethical lessons I feel this is the book which shaped me the most.
I’ve been away for a long vacation which I haven’t had in years. I travelled to some beautiful places filled with nature which always inspires me.
I wrote everyday and continue to do so, focusing on my fiction as well as non fiction.
Its triggered a new story in me which is a completely different genre and so I look forward to seeing it bloom.
Something which I have a great love for is: reading.
Being born to immigrant parents, I learned to speak English in school. I used reading anything I could get my hands on from the local library, to help me conquer the language.
My passion for reading increased as a teen, where I started to write my own stories, after being inspired by authors like Robin Klein, S.E. Hinton and Lucy Maud Montgomery. As I got older, my tastes broadened and I fell in love with classical literature, horror and science fiction. Authors like Steven King, Paulo Coelho, Christian Jacq, Anne Rice, Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts encouraged me to get back to writing because their words touched me and reignited the creative spark I had been suppressing.
I’m always reading several books at a time and love to open my inspiration to new ideas whether they be fiction or non fiction. This is why I have been puzzled when I meet people who say they never read. I find that weird…mainly because I love to read for fun as well as for knowledge. I find reading a great self educator and feel it can help writers hone their craft or encourage them to try our new genres or styles of writing.
Whatever I am reading all I want is to get “something” out of it and even if I dislike the book itself – at least I learned that!
tinaaltman.com 