"I may have found what I've been looking for..."

Perhaps it was the x-ray specs...

Cary Grant train-bound in North by Northwest

Of course Cary Grant wasn’t searching but hiding. And - to the best of my knowledge - those aren’t x-ray glasses. Having said that, on the same train he did find Eva Marie Saint - but that’s a whole other story…

I, on the other hand, have been searching. And for some while. If you asked me to articulate what I was looking for, well, I’m afraid I’d only be able to paint it in very broad brushstrokes - and strokes so uncertain as to leave you staring at an abstract ‘something’ and feeling none the wiser.

My next writing project. That’s the broadest stroke. Something ‘big’; something that might ‘matter’ - though these are hardly brush-marks to further refine the image! And not just in terms of the ‘what’, my searching encompassed the ‘how’ too: I have been telling myself that the form of the end product needs to be ‘different’, to ‘stand out’…

As if a confession in themselves, the number of parentheses in those last sentences betray the nebulous nature of my goal.

A few months ago I had an idea for a new project. It came with a ready-made structure so was appealing; but then I couldn’t quite get my head around what it ‘meant’ nor what I might make it mean - never mind how to bring it to fruition. So I left it alone. But then, with my current works coming to a conclusion by early July, it became time to start searching again. So I picked up that idea from last year, just to see…

I don’t think there was a “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” moment, but something had shifted during the intervening period. It wasn’t an epiphany as such, I’m not sure I believe in them anyway. Perhaps it was no more than the inevitable accumulation of experience, or the result of unconsciously considering that original idea in the background, but suddenly it seemed viable. Not only that, but other writings between then and now suggested a potential way forward with the ‘how’…

So for the last two weeks I have been working up the idea, planning it out, refining the ‘chapters’ (for want of a better word!), breaking them down into their component parts. A narrative has emerged from the fog. And what’s more, it seems to be coherent.

I mention all this not because anything is a done deal at this stage, but because I was prompted by this image of Cary Grant. I wanted to use it for something, and it suddenly seemed contemporaneous with the notion of searching - and searching…well, that’s where we came in.

Also I wanted to acknowledge that we, as writers, often have those moments when an idea comes to us, or solidifies - prompted or otherwise - and to recognise the magic in those moments. Their content can be as micro as finding that single word we’ve been looking for to adorn the end of a line of poetry, or the fog clearing on a whole enterprise.

Inspiration? I don’t know about that; you can choose your own word.

I like to tell people that '“no writing is wasted”, but maybe it’s a little more broad than that. Perhaps for writers, no thought is wasted, no idea is wasted - whether anything comes of it or not. All the while we are observing, processing, learning, making semi-conscious juxtapositions from which who knows what might spring…

So don’t devalue not writing. It’s all part of the process leading to the light dawning…

There’s no point trying to decipher or interrogate such moments of illumination, not really. We should just be grateful, grasp them as best we can, and move on.

I’m battle-scarred enough to know my idea may end up coming to nothing (it wouldn’t be the first time!) - but you don’t know until you try, do you?

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