Being a writer is a bit like being a whale. One of those big whales that swims around with its mouth open catching krill in its feeding filter (baleen whales, or Mysticeti). I think I'll be a blue whale. It's how we catch ideas. We go around with our minds open and the ideas just get caught, from the aether. They drift and get absorbed. Sooner or later they are recycled into books.I've just been away for a long weekend in Northern Ireland. I went to see my bigger daughter, who's doing a PhD at Queen's, and she took me, and a group of family friends, on a grand (as they say in Belfast) trip around her city and its outside world.
Belfast was pretty good for a mind-whale. There are legends and there's history. The Titanic, the murals, Giants' Causeway, a dodgy rope bridge (not very dodgy at all, actually), trying to follow the boat race on an iPhone as we drove back across Ireland, hunting for chitons under rocks on the beach, watching the birds that nest on sheer cliffs, hoping to see puffins (but not - never mind, I've already written about puffins). Then there were all the anecdotes from the other members of our party. From one, I learned how virologists trap samples of whale sneeze to test whether they can get flu. They can. But I'm not going to tell you how to trap a whale sneeze as I really *must* use that in a book!
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| Whale sneeze? |
Whales ahoy! (Oh, perhaps I should go to Wales...)
Anne Rooney also blogs as Stroppy Author
Latest book - The Colours of the Day in Daughters of Time, edited by Mary Hoffman, Templar, March 2014
8 comments:
Yup - that's how it works!
My in-laws used to own that rope bridge, before they got scared of the health and safety issues and gave it to the National Trust! Used by salmon fishermen, so my husband was carried across it by a brawny fisherman when he was a tiny baby. Er, I don't think that's of any use at all for you as far as books go - sorry!
If you are writing about whales you have to sleep at my 'sea' house. When you wake in the mornings you can hear the Southern Rights blowing. Trouble is you have to go in winter... but if you're writing about Belfast well that's another story! Good to meet you fleetingly at LBF today Anne!
You could come and watch the whales here in the Bight - Dianne doesn't have the monopoly on those Southern Rights! :)
I will happily come and watch whales wherever! Lovely to bump into you, Di, and I will by a copy of Zeraffa Giraffa - which you and Jane must sign for me!
Pippa - that is amazing, that M crossed the bridge as a baby!
I was talking to a (non-writer) friend today about the 13 year old eagle huntress in the news, and mentioned that I was 'stealing' the idea to use in a story someday. He looked shocked and suggested I'd be better off getting my own ideas...
I have also listened to the Southern Rights. And if I were a whale I would definitely make those noises.
I'm finding it very hard to imagine a whale sneezing and had to check the date of this post...
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