I've finally got hold of Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer. She talks about how writers you love may fail to inspire you to write because you may be hindered by feelings of inadequacy. She advises finding out the sort of stuff to read that does make you feel inspired. I'd never really thought of that. There are definitely books I read and I have to stop reading them and go and write. Yet, I've never stopped to analyse what types of books do that and try to use it to my advantage.

Come to think of it, if I get to the end of a film that really moves me I often want to write too.

Anyone else got any thoughts on the type of books/authors that hinder or inspire you to write?

Cath

Excellent thread Cath. I wonder if this is what stops so many writers from reading? By which I mean, whenever I teach creative writing I always meet several would-be writers who when asked what they read, say they don't- because it might intimidate them or put them off or they might find themselves writing 'in the style of' whoever.

For me, inspiring writers are Jeanette Winterson, John Steinbeck, Harold Pinter, Jane Gardam, Carol Ann Duffy. Hey, aim high. Not that I would ever pretend that I'm in that league, just that although they are all magnificent writers, they inspire me and make me want to write the very best I can rather than terrify me and make me think 'oh, what's the point?'

The 'writing in the style of' thing links to what Geoff's said on his thread about 'killing your heroes'.

Cath

I always get a buzz when I read something that's particularly bad, but has been published anyway. I think this is an important point for any aspiring writer because it shows you're developing the skills you need to criticise your own work. It's childish too, which is never a bad thing.

Colin M

What a great thread! I think I'm inspired by writing that's very immediate, alive, intense. It doesn't have to be very like or very unlike my own writing; it does have to be the kind of writing that wakes up all my own faculties and sensitivities - emotional, sensory, intellectual. It's as if, paradoxically, writing that makes its world seem very present to me makes my own world seem very present as soon as I've closed the book. Any despair I feel that my writing can never be that good is more than compensated for by feeling that what I've gained from it will feed my own writing.

Writing that's just bad or dull I increasingly can't be bothered with, even if the story's compelling.

Good writing that doesn't inspire me tends to be the kind where the ideas are all. I've tried to read Frayn's 'Headlong' twice. It ought to be just my cup of tea for all sorts of reasons - art history, stylish prose, fascinating ideas, sharp comic eye - and yet I just can't keep going. It's too airless. I love writing that's full of ideas and connections, but not when the narrative voice is so cool and detached that I as the reader feel cool and detached too, observing these curious creatures call fictional characters under the author's high-powered microscope.

Of course, that's on a good day. On a bad day, I don't feel I can write as well as the authors of the back of a packet of Shreddies.

Emma

I tend to find that if I appreciate a book, it gives me a Gung-Ho boost to write my own stuff. I have yet to come across a book that makes me want to give up in despair. I think it depends on what kind of person you are.

JB

Some very amazing writers I know will no longer read fiction; they greedily consume autobiography/biography and reportage though and find that more inspiring. Maybe they get to the point where they feel they've read everything and need reality/pursuit of truth, or something?

The most inspirational works for me are the Shakespeare plays- because they are chock full of almost throw away lines that for me can make up a story line, character, creature, situation - or because the words used are so rich they produce a sensation or a feeling - "we heard the chimes of midnight" "long legg'd spinners" "when blood is nipp'd and ways be foul" "when shall we three meet again"

I write children's stories and many have their inspiration from Shakespeare, - though so many worlds apart from the original that it's derivation is unrecognisable.


On the other hand anything Disney has totally sapped up everything within in so that there is nothing left over to inspire, develop or work in another way. There is a frugality about it, nothing has gone unused, and its totally dried up creative-wise.

I very much agree with Waxlyrical in that I have never come across a book that makes me think "hell, whats the point?".

quite the contrary, reading a book like "On the Road" or "The lovely Bones" would make me want to write better and become an equally as good as great writers who deserve the recognition. Is that vain?

When Anna mentioned Jeanette Winterson, I was immediately reminded of how inspired I reading Lighthousekeeping. I was torn between the urge to dash off and write and the one to stay and finish reading.

I agree - great topic.

Hi Cath

I tend to find that it is my state of mind/confidence that determines whether a book makes me want to write, or to give up on that silly notion straight away.

I have to say, though, I simply Could Not give up reading. It has been my escape, my passion and my friend for as long as I can remember. I guess it is lucky that good writing is more likely to inspire me than depress me.

I definitely get that fantastic creative buzz at the end of a really good film, too.

JennyWren
ps Since taking my writing more seriously I have found bookshops are no longer so good for me. I look at all those beautifully bound words and wonder what I could possibly add to the collection...

Like Issy, I find Shakespeare most inspiring. Every time I emerge from one of his works, I'm overflowing with words and can't stop writing -- be it stories, letters, emails, essays, anything. The language flows so beautifully & naturally that I think it undoes the knots in my brain.

I'm also inspired by downright lousy books because I automatically start thinking what I would have done differently with this plot or characters or whatnot.

Oh, and this probably sounds silly, but I find blurbs strangely inspiring. When I read an interesting blurb, my brain starts constructing the story of its own accord. I've often been disappointed to discover that the book didn't answer my idea of it at all.

I've found that my reading has been sidelined since more of my "diposable" time has been spent on writing, but this is something to be resisted. I agree that some books can be a little intimidating but there is great excitment in reading something different that broadens your belief of what "writing" is. Even the apparently mundane can be inspiring - when I first read Nick Hornby I felt for the first time that I could write as I thought and not in some assumed "writerly" style (of course it's a lot harder to do than it appears); Stephen King's On Writing is a great example of inspiring writing for writers (as well as readers - prolific as he is, he still finds time to read voraciously).

It's also useful to see other writers as colleagues rather than competitors when you're reading - there's always something to learn.

Every book that I read has something that I can learn from, so in that respect any reading will inspire.

With one exception, the late American SF writer, Rick Shelley was a dreadful author of the most mind numbing drivel.

I'm with Heckyspice although I often find work very unlike mine to be the most inspiring, simply because it takes me places I can't take myself and I can be objective about the things the writers are doing.

I love Richard Brautigan's sometimes pretentious and often 'out there' writing for this very reason. Totally different in attitude to the working class northern backwater and the punky times of my youth and a body of work I've read and re-read for a couple of decades.