Walking with fiction on my mind.

So  another Sunday night flies in and a muggy Edinburgh night draws in. Ernest has taken to sitting on the laptop so I'm on the IPAD. It has been a great week and one where I feel the writer muse is back with me.

How do I know this? It is more to do with a feeling deep inside me and also I have been writing lots over the weekend. About two weeks ago, a voice came out to through my pen whilst sitting in Writing Group. I don't know quite who the person is or where it is going but it is a strong one. I probably shouldn't be working on anything else but maybe it will help if I can start focusing on a routine for writing then perhaps the work on the novel will start to flow. I think the story will be called "Not without my notepad."

So you maybe thinking "yes Julia", we've heard this before, but you are no where nearer getting a book published than a new born child. I will happily take this on board, but I was able to get some writer's dust which is a bit like fairy dust for Peter Pan's ability to fly. What is writer's  dust?  For me,  it is going to the Edinburgh Book Festival for a couple of hours. The book festival fills me with my dream, which has been the same dream since I was 15, to be published. I'm a geek when it comes to writing and it is my belief that one day it will be me at the book festival as the author and not just the spectator. It is also the place where, over the last ten years, I have seen some of the greatest story tellers the world have seen.

The second feeling this week happen because of a question I was asked at writer's group. The conversation had been on how people at the group write and edit as one of my friend is very worried about the process they are using to write. The  question was put to me tohow I write? My answer is that I am a head writer. What is a head writer? For me it is about playing my prose around in my head as though it was a song on loop and I had to learn all the words. When I am about 90% there in my head, I will transfer this to page and screen and build it from there. there maybe only 500 words on paper but that is enough for me to turn it into chapters and chapters of prose.

Being a head writer means finding the time to listen to the voices in my head  which is where the walking came in. Hours and hours sent walking around playing out scenes it my head and facial expressions. I am used to getting weird looks as I tend to look at people and drift away to fantasy lands. In fact I still get looks today as I am always doing it. Today I had one of those walks on the way to lunch with friends, one where I got slightly lost, walked a bit too far and didn't feel the pain in my legs. I was thinking about my new character, thinking of next opportunity to write, thinking about the words singing through my head. Oh yes, I am possessed.

So in the city of the biggest arts festival in the world, with the paraolympics around the corner and weddings being the hot topic of conversation. The future at the moment is very inspiring.

To inspire a generation

To inspire is to stimulate to activity, encourage a feelings, cause to feel uplifted.

Inspire a generation was the strapline to the olympics games and unless you are completed blind to sporting achievements, this is exactly what the Olympic Games have achieved in London 2012. It made me think  about my own life and the same time what mental speed everything seems to go at. The fact is we spend too much time working and not enough time concertrating on our dreams. Some people may say that you need to be a teenage to have dreams, but I say that you are never too old to dream and the power to follow your dreams lies within you.

So with this in mind, here's what's been inspiring me over the last 7 days:

The Olympic spirit and watching so many people achieve their dreams over 16 days. There are some many medals, it is impossible to pull out any one person, but Tom Daley's bronze medal stands out because of his incredible journey being tinted with so much sadness with his Dad's death. Something, I can totally understand. Also, anyone who knows me will know the idea of jumping of a 10 meter platform is one of my worst nightmare.

Staying on the Olympics (sorry but I must say this), Oscar the Southern African runner - he showed that there is no barriers if you dream hard enough.

My friend Ed, who is writing a book on Gleneagles for the Ryder Cup. I know how much that means for him and his commitment to his dreams is awe inspiring and makes me realise how lazy I am about writing.

Foundationbridge Writing Group published Bleeding Ink this week - a collection of short stories and poems. It maybe small and just a drop in an ocean to the amount of published material out there, but part of being a writer and having a voice is sharing it. This is what we have done.

Finding Poems - it sounds such a cliche to be reading poetry, but I do and every time I do, I find something amazing in the prose. On Sunday it was The Raven by Poe. The rhymes are amazing - here's one of my favourite lines: "On the cuishon's violet violet lining that the lamp-light gloating o'ver." You may not read poetry but sometimes you can find magic there. I am loving the fact that we have one of my own poems to read at the wedding.

Knowing that good friends are just a stone throw away and there are some friendship that run deeper than the blood of family.

All of the above inspire me. To inspire is to stimulate to activity, encourage a feelings, cause to feel uplifted. I know I need only look to my friends and family to feel inspiration, and the fact they are there to catch me makes me feel as though I can achieve anything.