Tag: inspiration

The Water Signs Location Tour: Morecambe Bay

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Our train pulled into Morecambe Station just after 2pm. It was raining, so we took shelter in the waiting room in the hope it was a passing shower.

Twenty minutes later we had read every leaflet and transport timetable of interest, and the rain had only got heavier.

Keen to ditch our bags, and with empty stomachs, we started out towards the boarding house. I was uplifted by the smell of salt in the air. My gaze ever-turned towards the watery horizon, where jagged hills loomed in the distance. The bay was so much smaller than I remember it being in my childhood years – a reminder of how perspective changes between the ages of seven and thirty-seven.

Once we’d spent some time mooning over the Art Deco dreaminess of The Midland Hotel, we ambled along in the wild and wet to our B&B just off the sea front. The hotel turned out to be managed by a good-natured Glaswegian who carried my bags to our room even though we had paid a modest sum for our board.

He asked what brought us to the bay. I wanted to tell him I was a writer. That I’d spent many a childhood Sunday in Frontierland – the theme park that was now a Morrisons supermarket, just around the corner from where we were standing. I wanted to tell him I often write poems about the ocean, and that I would probably write a few while I was here.

But I didn’t.

Talking about what I’m writing is always so beyond me in the early stages of a project. There are so many questions that I don’t have the answers to at that point. So I gave the manager an awkward smile and said ‘we are just away for a few days.’ My husband smiled and corroborated my story. He’s good like that.

The next day, we awoke to a view of the bay that was much cheerier than the night before. Friday’s dusk had been moody, smudged in charcoal, which somehow made it even more miraculous that trails of water managed to glitter across the sand like stardust.

That morning though, the Irish Sea was a blend of aventurine green and stonewashed blue. A storm of seagulls cycloned above it whilst the lines of distant hillsides, like the spines of sleeping giants, hunched their backs against the sky.

We swiftly dressed for breakfast, which we were informed was served between 8.30 and 9am. When alone in the room we laughed over the strict timings, though I accept it is the perogative of boarding houses to set less-flexible meal times than the lavish hotels. I’ve worked the hotel breakfast shift myself and know they don’t have to pay staff just for the serving, but for the setting and cleaning. The washing and drying, and the setting for the next meal.

When we went downstairs, we found we’d been given by far the best table in the breakfast room. As I sat down, I thought how lucky this was, especially after arriving the day before to find we had been given an ocean-view room. It wasn’t until I’d devoured a substantial pile of scrambled eggs that I discovered the source of our good fortune.

When booking the room, my email signature had betrayed the fact that I am the author of two novels. I had completely forgotten that signature was even there. Not surprising given my last novel was published a good 18 months ago and in any case, I didn’t think anyone read email signatures. I was wrong.

Whilst I was contemplating a second glass of orange juice, the lady who co-owned the hotel approached me, saying: ‘You’re the author, aren’t you?’

It took me a few moments to work out how she could possibly know this. I replied that I was, and explained a little about my projects when she asked. I promised to send her my poetry if I wrote any about Morecambe. She promised to look up my books and was delighted to have me as a guest.

This, of course, meant all the conversational side-stepping I’d done on arrival had been pointless. I had given myself away as a writer before I had even arrived.

After breakfast we walked down to the sea front so my husband could take in the air and watch me hunt the foreshore for sea glass, rocks and shells. As I looked across the bay, some of the hills in the distance looked like ghosts in the mist. As though I was looking back through time at apparitions of hillsides that once stood thousands of years ago. Before erosion and tectonic shift moulded the landscape into the rugged beauty on offer today.

Right then I decided I would write a poem about this place, and, when I got the chance, maybe update that email signature.

A poem about Morecambe Bay is included in Helen’s bestselling poetry debut: Water Signs.

For tips on writing and publishing your own poetry, tune into The Poetrygram: a poetry podcast hosted by Helen featuring news, views and prompts to use in your own writing.

A Ride Out to Rochester

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As a writer, I’ve always felt it important to open myself up to new experiences. I mean, not like sky-diving or swimming with sharks but experiences that will intrigue and excite me… rather than scare the life out of me. By doing this, I find I am able to fill my head and my heart with new inspiration and insights.

In her book, The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron suggests something similar. She instructs the reader to go on ‘artist’s dates’, on which you take yourself off somewhere new for an hour or two to focus on experiencing something you wouldn’t day-to-day.

Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn website also regularly talks about the importance of filling the creative well (I’ve followed Joanna for some years now, and can recommend her website if you’re interested in writing and/or publishing).

With all this in mind, I didn’t put up any resistance when on the 2nd of January my historian of a husband suggested a ride out of London in the direction of Rochester. Though I was yet to return to the laptop in an official capacity, I understood a new environment would be the perfect stimulus to kick-start my creativity in 2019.

Once we’d made the short hop from Victoria, we spent a good while roaming the passage ways of Rochester Castle, which boasts a 12th Century stone keep.

Over the last couple of years I’ve started writing murder mystery novels – or cosy crime novels as they are now perhaps better known. While wandering the stone steps and corridors of the castle, I started to think about what a great chase scene you could have in a story if you set it in a relic like this one.

Inspiration isn’t just to be found in the grandest places however. My fourth novel, which I’m currently in the process of writing, happens to be rather concerned with bookshops. I’m sure you’ll agree then, the importance of me visiting as many bookshops as possible in the name of research. Rochester definitely delivered on this score. I wasn’t going to walk past ‘England’s largest rare & secondhand bookshop.’

I may have come out with one or two volumes under my arm, for it is said that authors can never read enough. I also overheard an endearing conversation between a father and daughter who were trying to solve a riddle set by the bookshop. When you unraveled it, you found the shop’s hidden ‘fairy door’. I didn’t go on the quest to uncover this gateway to the fairy world myself but, who knows? One of my characters might in a future story or poem.

The current protagonist I’m working with is a tea-obsessed, crime-solving librarian so it may come as no surprise that this sign hanging outside Mrs Tickit’s Pantry caught my attention. It also seemed like a sign from the universe that it was time to sit down, eat and drink. I’m always looking for signs like these but just as in the case with the bookshop, it is all in the name of research as I have to make my character’s visit to tearooms and similar places seem authentic. Sssh. Yes I do.

The last portion of our day was spent exploring Rochester Cathedral. I was particularly taken by the curves and the arches of their crypt and spent quite a bit of time photographing the different patterns and shapes the beams made. Story-tellers are always looking for intriguing interiors where they can set some dialogue or action. I’m not ruling out a chapter set in a crypt in some future adventure on the page. I don’t know if or when I’ll use this experience but there are some experiences in my journal that have sat for almost twenty years before coming in very handy in one of my creative works – there is no expiry date on these things, I’ve found.

Circling and weaving through Rochester’s enchanting architecture, more than a hundred ideas for characters, interactions, dialogue, settings and feelings zipped through my mind. I captured some of them in my journal and ‘threw some fish back for another day’, as we say round our way. Due to the dwindling January daylight we were in Rochester less than six hours in total, but as you can see the experience was rich and inspiring.

If you have creative aspirations for 2019, I wholeheartedly encourage you to find even two hours a month to go somewhere new and fill your creative well. It could be as simple as walking home from work via a different route, going to a free event organized near you, going to see a film you wouldn’t ordinarily go and see or visiting an area of town / coffee shop you’ve always meant to go but never quite made it to. It doesn’t have to be expensive or in fact cost anything at all but taking your mind to a new environment and sparking your curiosity often makes our creative hearts beat faster.