“I heard them talk to me from a picture!” that’s exactly what I told my brother on the day I wrote my first story. I was around 8 years old and I wanted him to come with me to witness the story unfold at the library. He was confused by my request but at the same time very curious to know what I meant about writing something I had “heard them talk about in a picture.”
“What picture, what are they saying?” he wanted to know. And I smiled and took his hand so we could go back to the library where I had just found the special book of interest.
The book was a typical coffee table book, big format with beautiful black and white photographies from the 1920s. The women in the photographs were wearing headbands and long pearl necklaces, smoking long cigarettes. The men were in tuxedos and top hats mostly sitting and smoking cigars in Art Deco furniture. I thought it looked fabulous.
“So, what what are they saying?” my brother asked
I opened the book, and I told him that we needed to stay quiet for a while because they were having a party and they were all talking too much for me to hear a single thing.
“Ok” he answered with a crooked smile on his lips, ready with pen and paper.
And the story went something like this:
“You see the women on the left corner - she just came back from a bakery shop but now they are all drunk and she is in a bad mood because they did not sell the cakes with the white horse. She just told it to the man in the other corner, his name is Oscar. And now they are in trouble. You see, they had promised the entire party that they would bring the white horse specialty cupcakes for dinner and now they brought cookies instead. And cookies are no good. The other thing is that they are about to host a party for Harold. Harold is the dragon who lives next door and he only eat those white horse cupcakes.”
My brother just nodded, as if I were telling a very real story, and I will never forget the thrill of that. So I continued for a bit.
“Yes, you see, now I will have to ask them what happened but that will be for next time when we go to the library.”
And just like that… I had a way of making stories. I went to the library for random picture books and started to tell my brother what the characters were telling me.
When we grow up we tend to forget that there is a source of unlimited inspiration that we are naturally born with. It is an unfiltered, unlimited container that tends to show itself to the most innocent minds. And with innocence I mean the openness, the fearless the curious way of a child. The element that is needed in a creative process.
Today, when I was wondering about a poem I want to finish and felt pretty “dry” on inspiration this memory came to me. As creatives we all have different ways to get inspired but I think that the best we can do is to practise being a pure vessel ready to receive the moment.