It was 9am on the 26th of February 2010. I sat down at the kitchen table with a coffee and my notebook. I had an idea—an idea that I wanted to write a novel.
I’d met a character in my early morning dreamtime. I pictured her. I heard her voice. I imagined what would happen to her. Perfect Mercy Hamilton became real. The pen moved over the page, words flowed like a chocolate fountain—thick and fast. Character sketches and chapter outlines poured out onto the page.
Then Justice came to me and told me her story. The pen zoomed across the page, as fast as I could make my hand move.
My hand ached with the tension of keeping up with my racing thoughts When I put the pen down, I’d outlined plots and characters for several books. When I looked at the clock it was 10am on the 26th of February 2010.
In one hour a series of books had formed into outlines on a page and would set the course of my writing for the next few years. The fairy dust of inspiration had visited and sprinkled all over me.
Elizabeth Gilbert shares what she calls her ‘train’ moment in Big Magic. She describes the way a short story formed in her head as she slept on a train. When she wrote it all out, it was perfectly formed. This was a moment when the fairy dust of inspiration sprinkled all over her.
Gilbert suggests that a lot of ideas are floating around in the air, looking for someone who will take them. When an idea hits, the world around you stops until you write, sketch, sing, play or dance it out.
God, fairies or magic, enchantment—whatever you may call it—sprinkles us with inspiration, but it’s up to us to do something about it.
If my plan is to sit around waiting for another such unadulterated impassioned creative visitation, I may be waiting for a very long time. So I don’t sit around waiting to write until my genius comes to visit. …When my genius is convinced that I’m not messing around here, he may show up and offer assistance.
I have a saying, ‘Let God do the supernatural and you do the natural.’ Fairy dust is magical, and when the ideas are flowing, you are flying. When it’s time to take those ideas and turn them into something, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work.
The fairy dust of inspiration provides the motivation for living a life of creativity, and a reason for the hard work that’s required to birth to the books I write. It’s a gift I’m grateful for.
Like Gilbert, I think it’s all kind of amazing-what we get to do, what we get to attempt, what we sometimes get to commune with.
I want to spend the rest of my life collaborating to the best of my ability with forces of inspiration that I can neither see, nor prove, nor command, nor understand.
If I seem a little other worldly sometimes, it’s because my days are full of enchantment, fairy dust and gratitude.
Big Magic QUESTION
Have you ever been hit by the fairy dust of inspiration? Have you ever had an idea that will not leave you alone until you give it your fullest attention?
Elaine, I can’t remember if I have ever told you how I found out I was to write. Forgive me if I have told you this story before.
It was a couple of years ago and I was on a work site visit, the destination is a place that although harsh in its use, is a place I experience absolute peace. My day out was with a colleague I barely knew but he was good company and offered pleasant conversation. The following day I was outside hanging out the washing and quite suddenly my day out was replayed in a narrative, the words spoken between two colleagues were clear in my mind as if I was reading a story in a book. I was surprised, pleasantly I will add, but did not think a lot more of it. The same thing happened again a few months later, my life again showed before me as a narrative and my experiences there as if it were a book.
I am sure now it was a future career / hobby being shown to me, my path being laid out for me to see. My little piece of big magic.
Yes I have. I do often. The hardest part in my season is to find time to process and capture those ideas. As a mumma of two littles the ideas come but I loose them so often as my life whirls and swirls. I am learning to be okay with this part of my season and hope that someone else captures those ideas and brings forth the gold.
I feel that my first poem written as an adult, was a “fairy dust” moment. Someone asked me if I could write something for an Easter service, I automatically replied “no”. As the meeting went on around me, I slipped into this zone where the poem came to me pretty much whole. It had the effect of unlocking something in me. It was an incredible, amazing gift and a sacred moment.