After just reading that Becca wanted to be tied to a chair overnight in the name of inspiration or research, I wondered what things other people have tried.

When I was doing my MA, one of the tutors, novelist Sara Maitland talked to us about 'findng silence'. She spent months (can't remember exactly how long) living in complete isolation. She took enough food so she didn't have to have any human contact and had no radios, TV, etc., just herself and writing materials. She experienced hallucinations after a while. She has written a book about the experience, I think. This has reminded me to look it up!

Catherine

I think experiencing events for research and inspiration can be a little bit dangerous if it's not self-governed. Obviously no-one's going to jump off the Tower Bridge to experience the feelings and events of suicide, hoping to get rescued and eventually write about it (are they?), but a line needs to be drawn, but I'm not quite sure where.

I've toyed with silly ideas (and done some)for my own work, like sitting in a pub and going over to the roughest looking bloke and being all polite to him, then downing his pint or taking someone's glasses off their head to read my paper etc.But I would end up in bandages, along with the experience for my book, but it's a bad trade off. I suppose it's all about finding balance, like everything.

I think some people (including me) can get a bit carried away with creativity, and become a bit confused where the borders lie.

Dave

I once walked for an hour through a forest, to try and experience what total wilderness was like, for my first novel [a third finished], Dark Wilderness. I wasn't scared, but enjoying the walk. Then something, I don't know what, made me turn back. It wasn't until I realised the distance between civilisation and the wilderness was too far to run, that I started to feel 'watched.'

That feeling escalated until I was totally scared shitless. Cue running through the forest like a hunted man, then falling over, face first! It was quite a scary experience and various animals running up trees, making strange noises, and branches breaking behind me, nearly frightened me to death. At one point I was convinced there was something behind me. To this day I still believe it.

When I saw the main road through the trees, I really thought my heart was going to explode. I've never been so scared in my life, which is quite silly. Needless to say, I no longer like trees, forests, or woodland of any kind. There's something scary about them. I would not do it again for the sake of research.

Something I'm doing a lot of recently, is trying to 'get inside' the story that I'm writing. Experiencing it completely in my mind, and writing the story to its conclusion with what happens 'inside.' It can take hours to get into the atmosphere sometimes, but it's providing some scary results for me, which is excellent for my stories. But it can get a bit frightening. It's like ghost writing.

Ste

Making the physical body suffer to induce 'creativity' is not for me. It borders on drug inducing theories, self-torture and flagellation. One generally finds that any subsequent writing that is claimed as being 'inspired' by such acts, will lay emphasis on the 'experiences' of the Author, mainly to ensure that all readers are aware that the writer is 'different', 'clever', 'original' and so on.

I agree that there is little merit in claiming something like 'The plot of my book came to me as I was having a bubble bath', or 'the idea for my best seller was born in our local Wimpy where I had a double burger with TRIPLE Onions!' Stiil, people do get their kicks in many ways. I would rather tie somebody else to a chair all night! That would be really creative!

Len

Len

You hear that, Becca?

I get my best kicks writing. Anything I can do to prolong the writing, satisfaction, thrill, high, euphoric feeling I get writing a story, I'll try. It just does not get any better.

Len, it's all good shit, as the phrase goes. Writers aren't exactly normal people. We all have our ways of writing and getting inspiration. So some of us may be borderline insane, but it's better than being boring writers.

**there is little merit in claiming something like 'The plot of my book came to me as I was having a bubble bath'**

I have my best ideas in the bath, submerged below the water, the world shut off for ages. It's a great way to clear your head and focus.

Right, I'm off to Burger King for some inspiration...

Ste

Yeah, I didn't want to get a discussion going about whether it's good or bad to do certain things in the name of inspiration! I just wanted to hear about things people have done because it interests me! Becca, I hope you don't mind me using your example (and I got it a bit wrong too - it was being tied to a chair for a day, not overnight!!).

Personally, I've never done anything more than research on the internet, draw on personal experience or that of others around me and use the 'morning pages' for ideas or when I'm stuck (see Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, which I'm always going on about on here). Oh, and I often use a kind of 'hotseating' technique to try and get into heads of characters, something which I guess is used more by actors.

Catherine

Yes Dee, I did hear what Len said.

Now, 'hotseating', Catherine, what's that? And I don't mind you using my example at all, I never did it though, only talked about it, my friend was challenging me about writers writing things they haven't experienced, a silly thought on her part which I think she withdrew later.
I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you're experiencing something, and as you do so you know you're going to be writing about it, and the writing in your head is ahead of the action taking place, and you start to manipulate the situation so that it fits in with how you want it to be on the page. That's a strange experience.
Is hotseating a bit like what I was describing where you try to find ways of imagining yourself into a character's head or their situation to be able to write about it more rawly.(sp?)
Becca.

Becca,

In acting, 'hotseating' is where you get someone to ask you questions while you're in character to get you thinking more about the character's background, how they react to certain things, etc. I've had someone ask me questions about my literary characters or alternatively written my own lists of questions and answered them from the perspective of different characters. It's probably a common thing, I just call it hotseating!

I've never had that where I'm experiencing something and know I'm going to be writing about it. What happens to me, though, is through the morning pages. Sometimes when writing them, I get insights or gut feelings about what is going to happen next in my life. So I've written about things before they happen. I guess that's very spiritual. I'm getting that so vividly at the moment about a situation I'm in that it's actually scaring me! I can't wait to see if my 'insight' turns out to be true.

Catherine

Ste,

I do wish you would read any reply carefully. You make a number of statements that you connect with what I have supposed to have written. I never write shit - I may write crap sometimes but never shit.

We all have ideas that may (and usually do) emerge from the most ordinary happening - like in a bath or while eating Burgers... and because they are so ordinary there is little or no point in attributing your ideas to such normal events. Whereas some writers
attribute their work to their self-imposed suffering they brought upon themselves 'in the name of Art' which usually means that they consider their work to be superior to others.

Len

Len,

Who brought shit up? Not I. I thought crap was the same as shit, but I must be wrong.

Ste

<Added>

Oh, Len, *good shit*, yeah, I did say that! That's a compliment, not an insuly - means VERY GOOD STUFF. A standard of very high-quality. It's a street phrase for narcotics! But it basically means pure quality of just about anything. :)

Speaking of shit, I find that my greatest ideas and inspiration come to me whilst I'm dropping a deuce.

And if nothing useable pops into my head through the duration of dropping the kids off at the pool, I'll just take a peak in the toilet and start to name my doo-doo's after characters-brown rough egded ones can be called Saddam, and the green ones can be called Margarita and they both live happily ever after in my septic tank.

Getting carried away here, hope you weren't eating dinner whilst reading this.

blearghhhh....

x

GREEN?!!! Silverelli, what have you been eating??
Sharon

Catherine, I love that Cameron book; it's full of great stuff. And the hotseating thing, have you got a list of questions you can put up so we can all answer them from the point of view of one of our characters? I used to have a list I got from a site, but I don't know if I'll be able to find them. I know one question was, 'What is under your bed?'
Sharon