It begins with a seed. A dream. An idea, planted and encouraged to grow. A thought that buries deep down inside and puts out monstrous roots. Until, at last, the bloom erupts and showers the land with life.
It begins with a seed.
The premise behind this collection began with a simple thought: Where does a story idea come from?
I carry my thoughts with me for a long time before I commit them to paper. At any one time, I might be thinking about (and working on) one, two or even seventeen different creative pieces. Mostly these ideas are snippets of inspiration that have come to me, a single line or an interesting image. They can be a reflection of something I have felt or seen that day, a reaction to a situation, or an emotional stimulus. Sometimes they come from moments of active observation; people, nature, or current affairs. Other times they come to me randomly, like when you wake up with a song in your head.
Most of my stories begin as curious little Frankenstein’s monsters of lines and ideas I’ve cut and pasted together, sometimes stealing parts from previous works, rearranging them into a brand new creation.
Well, it’s not exactly stealing when the words are all your own.
I notice themes and strands of consciousness which follow me around a lot. Symbols and metaphors that rear their ugly heads quite regularly, often on a predictable rotation. I feel frequently tied to the phases of the moon and the energies therein, but more than that, I am beholden to my personal expectations and anxieties. I can’t escape them, so instead, I tidy them away into boxes, into stories, in the hope they might behave themselves for a while.
I work through my emotions through writing, and it’s always interesting to see what kinds of things pop out. How my inner voices whisper things and require me to take a moment. To stop. Be still and listen. That small, quiet voice, the one which speaks carefully and authentically, honestly and without fear, that’s the one I try to focus on and embrace.
In this collection, I have revisited old word-friends and cannibalised their bodies. I have chewed them up and spat them out into shapes and forms that better suit their purpose. Not that their previous form was undesirable or incomplete, merely that change and progress are all essential driving forces for my creativity and self-analysis.
A dear friend of mine who has been writing for over 40 years once told me that there are no rules when it comes to writing. “A writer only writes for themselves and does their best to create the books they want to read.” This collection definitely fits that description, but I do hope that you enjoy it too.
For me, it is a reminder that not every inspiration is a lightning bolt. Sometimes, it is a tiny seed that needs space and time to grow.
~ Tabatha Wood, Aotearoa, New Zealand, 2021