Inspiration: My WIP
This post is taken from a prompt on social media from my wonderful coach, Nicola Washington @toomuchsocial, as part of a seven day share for authors in the process of writing a book.
Day One :
WHY:
Why are you writing this book?
What is the inspiration that lies behind it?
Was it a moment of inspiration or a slow burn over time?
What is your book’s “origin story”?
This is what I came up with:
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The inspiration for my WIP has been slowly burning for decades. I’ve been trying to either snuff out the embers or get the fire out of my brain and onto the page for a long time.
I think my grandmother played a great role in the origin of this WIP. Nana was a strong woman, not because she was naturally strong (she was shy, and never wanted to cause any trouble), but because she had no choice. Imagine: she gave birth to my uncle in a Liverpool hospital all alone during an air raid. All the doctors and nurses ran to shelters and left her there in advanced stages of labour while the bombs rained down. While I know it happened to millions of women all over the world, the fact that it happened to my Nana makes the horror of what she endured very vivid.
Two or three years later, a couple of months before the war ended, her husband was killed when the merchant ship he was stationed on was torpedoed, and my grandmother was left all alone to raise two small children.
Nana came from a poor background; all she has was her widow’s pension. But she was clever, and proved to be an astute businesswoman. She worked hard, took impressive risks, developed her own business in retail fashion, and did well.
Although her achievements went completely over my head as a child, as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to really admire her strength and resilience.
I was very close to her, and was with her when she passed away, twenty years ago.
While I’ve been lucky enough not to have to cope with terrible loss and financial difficulty as an adult, I have been affected by trauma experienced by family members and close friends. I’ve witnessed women struggle, trying to keep families afloat, putting up with terrified men dealing with anxieties in all kinds of weird ways. I’ve seen couples try to keep up appearances, hiding shame, hiding mental issues, struggling with guilt. I’ve seen women working all hours, without recognition, to keep families afloat.
These issues affect me deeply, which is why I struggle to write about them, even in the context of pure fiction.
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I was amazed by how much insight and clarity doing this exercise brought me.
Have you ever taken part in something that helps you organise your thoughts?