Friday, November 20, 2009

Friday Inspirations

It's a grey damp morning out on the fens and after a restless night I'm finding it hard to uncover inspiration for much.... and then I came across two articles that made me smile.

Firstly, a good friend shared this one about the writer's Bad Sex Award. It made me smile particularly because I found the sex scene in Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong that it talks about one of the most cringemaking scenes ever. There is little I despise more than gratuitous sex wrapped up in literary merit.

I find sex scenes difficult to write and I'm a big fan of the "less is more" approach. The insinuation of sex is far sexier than graphic description. My favourite poem, Byron's "when we two parted", is always thought to be the ultimate break up poem. Which it is but to me it also invokes sex that has been and gone with such breathtaking and spinechilling accuracy that there is no need for description. And this dear readers is why I find the old ones to always be the gold ones!

Secondly, this article about getting to know your characters reminds me of happy afternoons in Waterlow Park, chatting away to one or other of my protagonists. I need to start some of those conversations up afresh I think.

Share your inspirations dear readers and have a beautiful weekend :)

2 comments:

green ink said...

The Bad Sex award is hilarious!!

Anonymous said...

Loved the second article (didn't get to the first one). I think about that stuff in my writing a lot. It is always a challenge to make people come alive on the page.