GUEST BLOG: from Shylock Books

I'm Rose Kingsley, my book review site, Shylock Books, has a weekly photography feature for novel writing inspiration, and I would like to share my thoughts on how inspiration in the form of a snapshot can become a window into something spectacular.



There are countless ways to bottle inspiration. Reading a Jane Austen book, going for a walk along the Seine, watching an Italian film, or a whirlwind romance with a handsome stranger you met in Trafalgar Square. I'm asked quite often, “Where does inspiration come from?”



My answer, “I harvest it.”

That usually stumps the inquirer.



Many writers are faced with this question daily. Where does inspiration come from? Can you buy it in a store, like bread and eggs? Is it a commodity to invest in? Or is it simply a far away muse that can only be tapped into if the diva allows it?



Inspiration for writers, both young and old, is not tangible. It is different for each person. We experience the world through a pair of eyes, and a pair of hands. Photography has provided a glorious window for a moment in time to be captured, and many authors will say a certain photo grabbed them so intensely that they wrote an entire book trying to explain it all.



Lois Lowry, who is most famous for writing “The Giver” was inspired by bunch of unwanted photos in an antique store, that she purchased them all and wrote a book surrounded the exact photos she'd found. That book became “The Silent Boy.” And although inspiration, like love, can't be bought, but it can be found in the strangest of places.



Where would J.K. Rowling be if she hadn't ridden on that train and found the nucleus of the Harry Potter series dropped into her lap? Where would Stephenie Meyer be without the dream about an ordinary human girl falling in love with a vampire? Where would most of the publishing world be without these tiny sparks of inspiration?



Photography allows me to “harvest” inspiration in the forms of little scenes, captured in time. One day, it may be the right time, the right moment, when a pretty picture could spark the beginnings of a book idea. Harvest your inspiration like you harvest love.
Sow the seeds and search out your inspiration in the beautiful world out there, and you'll reap inspiration in the most unlikely places.





Shylock Books
www.shylockbooks.wordpress.com