Writing Inspiration in Mallorca - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Alright, I admit it. I've been away again but I'm not going to feel guilty.

The reason I'm not is because of my neighbour. She and her husband are in their eighties and are not able to do the things they used to do. Even a trip to the village shop is a major outing for them these days. Whenever I stop for a chat with her, she always says to me, "Wendy, do as much as you can, while you can. One day you'll be old and may not be able to do everything you want to do. Make the most of life while you can."

These words were an echo of those of a dear friend who passed away two years ago and it made me think about the truth in them. Life is for living... for enjoying. I've had periods of my life when things have been challenging but, at the moment, life is great. None of us know what's around the corner and, while we are able, my husband and I have decided to make the most of it. Having wonderful breaks in beautiful places such as the one we've just had in the Tramuntana Mountains of Mallorca, being one way.

We were there for five days and stayed in a simple finca on a hillside studded with orange and lemon trees. This photograph was of our garden and, each morning, we'd pick oranges from the trees and have freshly squeezed orange juice with our breakfast.
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Each morning, we'd wake up to the sound of sheep bells and birdsong, and, when we opened the shutters, the air was filled with the fragrance of orange blossom. Once, we looked out to see a heard of mountain goats in our orchard!

Fifteen minutes down a steep and cobbled track (and over stepping stones in a stream) led us to the village of  Fornalutx, which prides itself on having the title of the prettiest village in Spain. It was obvious why - nestled in the mountains, its cobbled streets and warm stone houses with their red-tiled roofs are a delight.

The place is a walkers' paradise but, having only brought trainers, my husband and I were content to take the footpath through the olive trees to Soller in the valley below and then on to Port de Soller. If we were looking for a beach resort, this is probably where we'd choose as it was lovely.

Feeling a bit lazy, we caught the little tram back to Soller, then walked back to Fornalutx, stopping for a well-earned chilled glass of white wine in the square.

The rest of or days were spent, visiting the lovely seaside resort of Puerto Pollensa, discovering the villages of Valldemossa and Deia and eating good food. We were lucky to have several restaurants in the village and didn't have a bad meal. In fact, the paella we had on our last night was probably the best we've ever eaten.

As you can imagine, we were very sad to leave our little finca but holidays must come to an end. My husband needed to get back to work and I needed to get back to my writing. I like to think of these breaks as inspiration for my magazine stories - needless to say, I have already started one set on this beautiful island. 

Speaking of magazines, I came home to find I had a story in the latest People's Friend magazine and here it is!

Waiting in the Wings - a musical inspiration

When fellow writer, Elaina James, asked me if I would like to participate in a blogging event (based around music) to link in with her guest blogs on the Mslexia site, I didn't hesitate to say yes. The only problem was, I was spoilt for choice as music is a big part of my life. I have been a member of my local Choir, Cantatrice, for over ten years and dancing (to a variety of different types of music) has been my hobby for even longer. Not surprisingly, music has featured in many of my stories in some form or another.

It was difficult to choose which to write about but then a piece of good fortune revealed itself. Elaina told me that her blog series was about chasing your writing dreams and that she'd written it from the perspective of a lyricist with stage fright (the final blog post focusing on the accidental chance to turn her words into a song with music). What a stroke of luck, for my story, 'Waiting in the Wings' had just been published in The People's Friend Special. It fitted the theme perfectly as the main character was a lyricist.

The story starts with Chris, a young songwriter, trying to write lyrics for a radio competition. He knows they want something upbeat but, because he has just split up with his girlfriend, the only words that come into his head are sad ones - words they said to each other during the breakup (I drip feed these random lines into the first part of the story). His mother sees the screwed up lines on the floor and tries to encourage him. 'Keep at it,' she says. 'Follow your dreams.'

In the second part of the story we are introduced to an older Chris who is now a successful lyricist for musical theatre. One of his best known musicals is being revived and he has been asked to write a new love song for it but once again he finds the words stalling - this time due to the death of his friend and composer, Ben.

I don't want to tell you everything, in case you intend to read it, but in the end Chris manages to write the new song for the show, using the lines he wrote (and threw away) all those years ago - but which his mother kept. 

This is the final verse:

I never knew that words could cause such sorrow

Don't tell me now, wait until tomorrow

You leave a trail of footprints on my heart

I know I loved you too much from the start

Maybe I should have been a lyricist!

So, moving on to the inspiration for this story. First of all, I love musical theatre - my mother and I have seen just about every musical over the years and some of our favourites are ones with lyrics by Sir Tim Rice (Evita being my all time favourite). In fact Joseph was the first musical I ever saw and I was even in a production of it when I was about eleven.

If you follow this blog, you will already know the story but last December I was adjudicator for the SWWJ short story competition and was invited to their Christmas tea in London to award the prizes. Imagine how delighted I was to hear that the other guest was none other that Sir Tim Rice. (You can read about the day in my blog post here.)

As the society's guests, we sat at the same table and it was lovely to have the opportunity to talk to him. During tea, Sir Tim asked me a lot about my magazine writing and mentioned that his mother had liked The People's Friend. I remember how even then a story idea was forming in my head.

After the tea, Sir Tim gave a speech about his early career and, when he talked about his musicals, I couldn't help wondering how he came up with such wonderful lyrics time and time again. Had he ever had writers' block? It made me think about my story again - what if the main character couldn't find the right words because he had a broken heart?

So there you have it - that meeting was the inspiration behind my story, Waiting in the Wings... Wouldn't it be lovely if Sir Tim read it!

This blog post is part of a music themed blog event organised by Elaina James, a guest blogger on Mslexia. 

Her author page on Mslexia can be found at www.mslexia.co.uk/author/elainajames.


Details of participating bloggers in this event can be found on Elaina James’ blog.

Write About What You Know

The glitter ball sends kaleidoscopes of light across the dance floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a cameraman training his lens in that direction. I lean my arms on the balcony and look down at the people sitting at their round tables, waiting expectantly. The band strikes up and my partner takes my hand.

"Shall we?"

I take a deep breath as he leads me down the red carpet and onto the dance floor. This is my Strictly moment. A nightingale is singing in Berkley Square and a couple dressed in their Sunday finery glide past us. For a minute I am Flavia and my partner is Vincent as we step onto the floor.

"What dance is this?"

I am brought back to reality with a bump. "It's a foxtrot," I hiss.

For we are not on the set of Strictly Come Dancing. We are, in fact, at a tea dance at the Waldorf Hotel to celebrate our anniversary; the camera crew are here filming for a series about finding love online and the man by my side is not Vincent but my husband of three years, Ian...

 

This is the beginning of an article I wrote for The People's Friend and, if you bought a copy of the magazine the week before last, you might have read it. In it, I describe how my husband and I met at a salsa class in Lewes and our shared love of dance. Some of you might remember me blogging about the Waldorf Hotel tea dance (mentioned above) in 2013. If not you can read it here.

 

When I first started writing, I remember reading an article by Doug McPherson (you can read his guest post here) in Writer's Forum on writing about what you know. Doug knows a lot about music and circuses, so you can guess what he likes writing about! What good advice that turned out to be - I found that by writing about something I love and know a lot about, half the work had been done for me. 

 

It's also worth remembering that it's possible to get a lot of mileage out of one topic. Dancing is a huge part of my life and, looking back over the last couple of years or so, I realise that as well as the article, I have written and sold seven dance themed stories to different magazines. My first ever People's Friend story was called Dancing Queen and my latest, about a woman who realises a perfect dance partner doesn't necessarily make the perfect partner in life (I beg to differ of course!) will be in this weeks issue. I won't tell you the name of the story as it will probably have been changed.

 

Of course, I write about a lot of things I know little about as well (autism, gardening, sailing, anything historical etc.)  but finding out about it takes time... when I write a story about dancing the research as already been done.

 

I'm beginning to think I've now saturated the market with my dance stories... maybe I should take up golf! 

How I Coped with Writer's Block

When it happened, after three years of writing, it took me by surprise. One day I was happily writing away and then the next day... blank. There was absolutely nothing in my head – no ideas, no little seeds to germinate. Just emptiness.

I couldn’t believe it. Surely I hadn’t succumbed to the dreaded writer’s block - I'd thought it was something made up... fictional... like my stories. Not wanting to panic, I pulled out my little book of ideas, knowing that in it would be a wealth of story nuggets that I could mine.

Running my eyes down the list of ideas accrued over many months, I felt a sense of relief and sat down at the keyboard to write... again nothing. I couldn’t form a story out of anything. Never mind, I thought, I’d get out one of my history books and have a browse – many of my historical stories have started this way... again nothing. Just the cursor blinking on my screen.

Since I started writing for magazines (two and a half years ago now), I’ve never had this happen. When people have asked me, Where do you get your ideas? and How do you write so many different stories? I’ve always looked at them in surprise and told them they are just there in my head, bubbling under the surface of my consciousness. Except now they weren’t!

So what is Writer’s Block? It’s simply losing the ability to produce new work and the most common causes for this are:

·         Running out of inspiration

·         Being distracted

·         Adverse life circumstances

·         Pressure to produce work

·         Feeling intimidated by precious successes

I put on my psychologist’s hat (yes, that was my degree many years ago) and thought about which of the above might apply to me. I realised that it was the last two and I'll explain why. 

I believe that bringing out my romantic short story collection Room in Your Heart, and having such lovely reviews for it, has made me worry that I will never be able to produce work like that again. This, along with the pressure I've put on myself to keep up my output of short stories, has caused the big freeze.

So what did I do about it? Well, I decided to give myself a complete break from writing short stories for a bit and concentrated instead on my serial, as I knew where that was going. I completed the fourth instalment and then gave myself permission to switch off. It was such a relief.

Then one day last week, while at my mum’s house, I was sitting looking out at the willow tree in her wonderful garden when out of the blue, a story came to me - just like that! Not only that but it was fully formed (unheard of for me). I wrote it up as soon as I got home and sent it.

I hope the magazine likes it but, if not, I won’t mind because I’ve learnt a valuable lesson: to be kind to myself.

My ideas had not gone, they were just resting.

* UPDATE* I sold the story!