Where Did That Come From? by Wendy H. Jones As it’s a fresh new season – spring has sprung and there are signs of new hope and new growth – I thought I would give you some fresh insight into the mind of a writer. What on earth makes us tick and where do our crazy ideas come from? So, prepare for a whistle-stop tour inside the mind of a writer. Let’s start with someone everyone will know – Ernest Hemmingway. It is obvious from his books that Hemmingway absorbed inspiration from both his travels and life itself. His writing is a pastiche, not of other writers, but of his life and the circumstances in which he found himself. His travels took him all over the world – Paris, Toronto, Chicago, Spain, Cuba, Key West, and The Caribbean. His books are reflective of this as he absorbed the passion and intrigue that went on around him allowing him to shape the words he wrote. He also bought houses in several places and the one in Key West can still be visited today. An interesting fact is that Hemmingway had a white cat named Snow White which had six toes. The Ernest Hemmingway Home and Museum houses 40-50 six toed cats and they are thought to be descendants of Hemmingway’s original cat. I have visited and I can report the cats are free to roam at will. Anywhere.
My next author, or authors, are Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte. The sisters were raised and lived in the village of Haworth in Yorkshire where their father was the parson. Charlotte, of course, wrote Jane Eyre, whilst Emily’s most famous, in fact only, novel is Wuthering Heights. Living on the Yorkshire Moors the sisters drew inspiration from the wild and majestic landscape which surrounded them. Wuthering Heights also drew on elements of romanticism and the gothic tradition, allowing its author to pen a book which is still considered a masterpiece to this day. However, did you know that she initially used the pseudonym Ellis Bell to send her novels to publishers. This was so they would not know she was a woman. They say there have only been six books ever written and every other author writes their own version of those. Stephen King, one of the most wellknown contemporary horror writers certainly comes up with innovative ideas. Yet, it is said that he came up with the idea for the book It from reading Three Billy Goats Gruff. What? How did a simple fairy (or folk) tale turn into the classic of horror fiction that is It? As well as writing horror, King has also written fantasy after reading The Lord of the Rings. His - 12 -
