Who, What or Where Influenced your Writing?

Wycombe Library as I knew it

Books have always been a source of inspiration for me. Great literature is like soul food for the imagination. It can take you anywhere at any time, no journey too long, no obstacle too great, no limits, no boundaries. Can I imagine a world where there are no books? NO is the simple answer. When I was a kid, my family couldn’t afford to buy books, (don’t worry, I’ve made up for that big time!), so the library was where I got my weekly fix. My town library during my teenage years was a place of huge inspiration. It was full of books by writers I had heard of and many I had not. 

Wycombe Library now

I made my way round the whole library, reading good fiction, exceptional fiction, high-brow to low-brow, from JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, John Wyndham, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, Tolstoy, Zola, the Brontes, Edgar Allan Poe, Maupassant, Stephen King, Dickens, Erle Stanley Gardner, John Creasey, Denis Wheately (I told you I read everything!), to John Fowles. I had wide and varied tastes – I still do! Although I never dreamt of being a writer then, I soaked up words like they were going out of fashion.

Penn Bookshop

Some of the thousands of books in Penn Bookshop

When I was about sixteen, my dad and I discovered The Cottage Bookshop in Penn – a second-hand bookshop stuffed full of shelves, nooks and crannies, bursting at the seams with books upon books upon books. I practically moved in, losing hours in that place. I didn’t know then that Terry Pratchett had also spent hours and hours lost in the book alleys of this very bookshop when he was a kid. The Cottage Bookshop was the inspiration for L-space (library space) in Discworld. Pratchett often returned to the shop during his career, and launched his Johnny and the Bomb there in 1996.

Ian Fleming

Stephen King was inspired by writers such as Richard Matheson, Shirley Jackson, H P Lovecraft, and Bram Stoker. Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe. Ian Fleming's James Bond was apparently inspired by Dennis Wheatley's Gregory Sallust series.

Tolkien was a huge inspiration for me – he led me into the endless worlds and possibilities of a genre I came to love.

So, it’s no surprise then that the first thing I ever wrote was a fantasy epic – complete with its own world, full of many lands, populated by a diverse range of people and creatures. There were several maps, drawn to scale. And hundreds of thousands of words: the trilogy had to be divided up into six parts. The manuscripts have been filed away. Every few years they get dusted off and reread before going back in the drawer. I may do something with them one day... I can’t say that my recent works have been inspired by one writer or a few writers in particular. That’s one I’ll have to mull over.

              

So what, who or where has inspired you to write?

Savita's Website

Homes and Gardens by Savita Kalhan

No, this isn't a blog about how to give your home or garden a makeover - unless you want it to look like it came out of a book!

A few weeks ago I was sent an email by a company asking me to put a link on my website for their company. At first I was interested. The company appeared to be a publisher and publiciser of books and ebooks. But it was only after I received a second email that I followed the link that had been sent to me and realised that they were in actual fact a curtain and upholstery company. Needless to say, I won't be advertising their company on my website because most people come to my site for information about me rather than who I'd recommend to make their new curtains! But for some reason the website did have a page on fictional homes, which was quite intriguing and gave me the idea for this blog...

Homes and gardens feature significantly in literature. There are homes that would be amazing to live in, others that I'd want to visit, and some that I'd only look at from a distance! Here are some of my favourites.

Top of my list is Bag End in The Hobbit. Bag End is a Hobbit-hole, but it is definitely no dirty, smelly hole in the ground. It's a place of warmth and comfort, a smial as Tolkien calls it, and it has always brought a smile to my face. Given the choice, I'd definitely make an offer on this property!

Location: Bagshot Row, Hobbiton, The Shire

The owner: Bilbo Baggins. Bag End was built to a luxuriously high standard by Bilbo's father Bungo Baggins for his wife, Belladonna Took.

Specs: countless rooms all situated on one floor with original features, panelled walls, tiled floors, polished furniture, round windows with views over lush gardens and meadows. There are ample pantries, large wine cellars, and several guests rooms. Bag End is a cosy property in an idyllic setting amongst green fields and orchards. Be prepared for the unexpected visitor - short of stature, wide of girth, possibly wielding an axe, or an exceedingly tall gentleman dressed in grey robes, who may lead you astray!

The Hobbit was one of my favourite books when I was young, and it still is, so Bag End is full of memories for me. I would very happily live there, and being only five foot tall, I would have no problems with the low ceilings, although Tolkien does tell the reader that taller visitors would have no problems, so perhaps the ceilings are actually not as low as people might think.

Misselthwaite Manor in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett has over a hundred rooms, but I'm not sure I'd like to live in such a huge property, and with a recent death in the family, a shadow hangs over the manor. It's the gardens that hold all the allure - from their winter bleakness to their summer bloom.

Location: Yorkshire.

Owner: Archibald Craven. Occupants: Colin Craven, Mary Lennox, Martha Sowerby and Ben Weatherstaff.

Both the house and the garden are full of secrets, which Mary gradually uncovers. She finds a key in the garden, and it unlocks not only a door, but other hidden secrets too. I loved the book when I read it many years ago. I wanted to find a key that would open hidden doors. I wanted a garden like the one in the book. I still love exploring old houses and gardens, and making up stories about them - I suspect I still haven't grown up yet!

Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery, was about a young orphan girl adopted by brother and sister Marilla and Mathew Cuthbert. It was set in a small farming community and followed Anne and her adventures as she tried to make this place her home.

Location: Green Gables, Avonlea, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Canada

Occupants: Marilla Cuthbert, Matthew Cuthbert, Anne.

Green Gables is a farmhouse surrounded by orchards and fields and woods, with a view over the Lake of Shining Waters and the Haunted Wood.

Avonlea and Prince Edward Island have become a tourist attraction by developing the area based on Montgomery's books, but I don't need to see the actual place where Anne Shirley grew up, or sit in the real Avonlea and drink raspberry cordial soda. Green Gables and the trials and tribulations of Anne Shirley have a special place in my memories.

Hill House in The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, is definitely not a place I'd like to live in. I'm not sure I even want to visit it. "Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it has stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more." So you can understand why I might only look upon it from a great distance, but venture no closer!

Location: Remote, near the village of Hillsdale.

Occupants for the summer: Dr. John Montague, an anthropologist with an interest in the paranormal, and Luke Sanderson (heir to the house). Staying visitors: Eleanor and Theodora, Mrs. Montague and Arthur Parker - all share an interest in the supernatural.

In daylight, the house seems like any other large house. Surrounded by large gardens, pretty paths, bubbling brooks, and a cosy living room with an open fire to retreat to when the light begins to fade. But do not be fooled.

I probably read this book too young. No, I definitely read this book too young, which is why very large empty houses on huge estates hold no appeal to me - especially at night. I would never live in Hill House even if it was going for a song, but if you have a special interest in haunted houses then this is the one you should consider - just be prepared for creaking doors, strange cold spots, and the occasional bump in the night!

My website - savitakalhan.com
Facebook
Twitter

Y.A. at Hay - Celia Rees

I was recently at the Hay Festival, in conversation with Melvin Burgess and Daniel Hahn, talking about Young Adult fiction and our novels, This is Not Forgiveness and Kill All Enemies.

Daniel Hahn, Melvin Burgess, Celia Rees 

The discussion was interesting (I hope for the audience, too) and wide ranging. At one point, Daniel asked us if there was anything that we thought we could not write about, any taboo subjects, any darkness too impenetrable? I found myself giving the stock Y.A. writer's answer about leaving the reader with hope, etc., etc.. Melvin disagreed. This livened the discussion considerably, and his response gave me cause to pause and food for thought. He outlined a thesis which took me right back to where I began as a YA writer and also made me think about how far we have travelled since then but how little ground we had gained. 

It is an accepted shibboleth ( like the one about 'hope') that ‘at one time’ there ‘wasn’t much written for teenagers’, ‘nothing available for them’.Of course, this is not true. Teenagers have always found things to read, books and authors they felt comfortable with, even if those books were not written specifically with them in mind. Books like George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery. And then there are the sic-fi/dystopian fiction writers: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, John Wyndam’s The Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids, J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World and Empire of the Sun, John Christopher’s The Trouble with Grass.

Quite a considerable canon. I read a lot of these books when I was a teenager, back in a time when novels for teens were not supposed to exist. I don’t remember feeling deprived, or thinking I’d have to stop reading because there was ‘nothing for me’. I thoroughly enjoyed the books I discovered on the adult shelves of the library, finding them myself, or being directed to them by friends who liked the same books I did. Reading these books was a rite of passage. I found my mind stretched, my understanding deepened, my assumptions questioned and challenged, my imagination

 fired. They weren’t writing for me particularly, but that didn’t matter, they were connecting with me on all sorts of different levels.

Melvin’s argument was that because these writers recognised no limits, there are no limits. I found myself agreeing with him and thinking that these books and these writers should be our benchmark. Perhaps we have compromised too far. In creating a specific Teen/Y.A. Lit. (although I still think that is important) we’ve wandered away from these writers who had the power to appeal to adults and teenagers alike. We have compromised, we’ve bowdlerised. We’ve listened to outside voices: gatekeepers telling us what is acceptable and unacceptable; Focus Groups and Target Readers; Publishers who tell us what the market wants, what it will tolerate.

Compare some of the books and authors I’ve cited, especially in Gothic, Dystopian and Science Fiction, with what is on offer at the moment in these genre, and you will see exactly what I mean. Where is the depth and breadth of the vision, the resonance and relevance, the imaginative reach, the complexity of the realised worlds, the quality and power of the writing? It is a salutary lesson. Of course, teen readers can go and read these books, and they should, but that is not the point. It is not good enough to mine them, to take from them, we should be producing books that bear comparison.

Creativity is a strange thing. Those books that I read when I was a teenager challenged me to think, fired my imagination, introduced me to ideas, and opened me up to possibilities. Maybe that experience is what led me to want to write for teenagers. True, or not, I’m thinking about going back. At least I’ll be guaranteed a damn good read!

I’m taking a break from blogging for ABBA but I’ve been proud to be part of the blog and to have seen it go from strength to strength. I’ll certainly be visiting regularly in the future to read and to comment.

www.celiarees.com

follow me on twitter @CeliaRees

Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/theofficialceliareesfanpagewww.celiarees.com