Inspiration for 2016

I love the first few days of a new year, partly so I can enjoy using the lovely Christmas gifts and beginning a new diary when the year is full of possibilities. Amongst many generous, useful and beautiful gifts, two are excellent sources of inspiration for a writer.


Daughter Victoria bought me this great little book, The Pocket Muse: ideas for inspiration and writing by Monica Wood. I was intending scanning through every page right to the end then going back and picking out which ideas to try first, but I'm only about a quarter way through it as it contains so much more than I realised. Some pages are merely a quote, others are full passages, or several ideas on one page, while others contain photographs to inspire creativity. I think this will be by my side the whole year.


Another fascinating book was a gift from my son and daughter-in-law: 100 Documents that Changed the World by Scott Christianson. Spanning thousands of years history, from 2800 BC (an ancient Chinese document) to the computer age 2013 (Edward Snowden Files), this contains a replica of important or significant documents set in their historical context. I suspect this will provide lots of inspiration for ideas once I get through them all.

Now, it's getting down to business time as I have the edits for my new novella which will be out in spring and a talk to prepare for my visit to Edinburgh Writers next week. I'm also adjudicating a few short story competitions over the next three months, so I'll definitely need to get organised again after the lazing and eating of the past couple of weeks!

Wishing everyone a happy and successful 2016.

Rosemary