Lari’s Writing blog

I write in a very small room.  A box room with a window, really.  And most of the room is filled with bookshelves.  But the wall to the right of my desk doesn’t have shelves.  It’s just clear white wall.  And while I’ve been writing the last couple of novels, I’ve always put pictures up on the wall to inspire me, to keep my mind focussed on what I’m writing.  Pictures of mountains for Rocking Horse War.  And for Storm Singing – seals, waves, tents, a picture of a selkie drawn by a reader, various other things which I won’t mention in case they give too much away… (but if you look closely at the photo, who knows what clues you might see!)

Storm Singing wall

But I’ve just taken all those pictures down.  It was quite a sad moment.  Bye bye Storm Singing.  And a fairly scary moment too!  What do I do next?  I’ve discovered that it’s pretty much the hardest decision you make as a writer.  What do I write next?  It takes more than a year of my life to write a novel.  So I want to pick the right idea!  So – what’s gone up on my wall now?  A line from a Foo Fighters song – ‘Done, done, onto the next one.’  A beautiful picture of a well drawn by one of my daughters.  A photo of a Mexican buzzard.  A printout of a hero and a horse from a 1000 year old Persian epic.  And a picture of Loki from the film Thor.  What on EARTH am I writing next?  No, don’t try to work it out – because those pictures are to keep at least three different projects on track at the same time.  But soon, very soon, I’ll take them all down, and start building a wall of inspiration for the next year of writing…  Scary.  But very very exciting!