Wordsmithing: inspiration haikus Muse and Athene

Tuesday, 1 December 2009

Inspiration comes from

I've been thinking about inspiration rather than Muse (for a change) .

Last week, I wrote a haiku that I loved. It is one of the fastest poems ever written. It probably took less than two minutes from reading the #haikuchallenge word to posting it.

Why did the poem leap from brain to Twitter that quickly? I blame the buzz word *before. It cut through the thought processes to the place where inspiration lives and leapt out... Athene-style... fully formed.

LIFE IS NOT A GROUND HOG DAY

Can't we go back to
the before that was our now?
This time get it right?

There was a line in a play - written for TV - I think by John Godber and Jane Thornton.

It is haunting: Can we not have before again?

It's not a long line of dialogue, as these things go, but it is one of the most important to me.

Where do you find inspiration?

RETURN: YA Paranormal Romance

I was running late. But, it was nothing I couldn’t make up with a bit of effort. I shook my head. Confident and happy? I smiled. Increasing my stride, I pushed until the muscles in my legs burned. I kept up the pace even when the hill grew steeper.

Magpie Lane was hardly wider than a ribbon that edged the woods but that didn’t stop traffic using it to get to the motorway quicker. Large trucks and fast cars loved Magpie Lane. They sent vibrations running through me rising from the soles of my trainers. I felt the disturbance in the ground, even before the air pressure tried to knock me off balance. I hunched my shoulders as the cab hauling a container spat stones up at me.

Jogging on the spot, at the entrance to woodland, I ached to leave the road and go inside. My Mum was probably still asleep but I could hear her you-never-know-what might-be-in-there lecture buzzing on repeat inside my head. I should run safe. Not even I would argue that running through the woods on my own was the best definition of safe but I wanted to run-wild and the woodland offered me that. This early, I should be safe from axe murderers or perverts in the trees and besides, I was fast.

I jogged down the slope into the trees. From two paces in, I felt different. Freer. It felt so right. Running in the woods did great things for my style. Avoiding the roots and dodging branches forced my stride longer, I had to step higher. The woodland, The Weald, was only a sliver of ancient woodland that the developers forgot to build on but it felt like it could have been anywhere. Everywhere. At any time. The oaks and beech trees dominated the space and the skinny, silver-birches squeezed up beside them. I laughed. For a second, the woods reminded me of school and I needed to run a lot faster.

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Tuesday, 1 December 2009

Inspiration comes from