The Roots of Influence and Inspiration - Part VI: Scribbling

Written by Sam Rawlings on Tuesday the 9th of November 2010

This journal is the sixth in a series of pieces I expect to write about those certain 'elements' of life that inspire and influence my writing. I think it's important to acknowledge these elements, as essentially they represent the root of our craft, they are the seeds that precede the fruit of our labour, the 'components' without which our thoughts, our images, our music, our words, simply would not exist.

I hope you enjoy my ramblings and in return I would love to hear all about the things that inspire and influence you. After all, "without sharing, the imagination becomes little more than an echo of itself."


Part Six: Scribbling

I love scribbling in notebooks. The release that comes from opening up a satisfying stream of consciousness is, to me, one of the most magical elements of writing. What a wonderful sensation to be staring into the darkness and then suddenly, out of nowhere, come these words, these ideas ... If ever I'm in search of inspiration, I've learnt that the best thing for me to do is to switch off, clear my mind, take a walk, visit a café; simply let the world go by for a while and then, blank page at the ready, wait and see what happens.
      With that in mind, the following are all examples of my most recent scribbles...


'Ineffably disorganised the clock's hands smiled a while longer than had previously been supposed possible...'


'Just watch it Limpit! All right... Just leave it will you... Limpit...? I mean it...! Just bloody leave it will you...?'


'It's over, for the tyrannical toucan has spoken.'


'Sleep stained n'ragged the rain's fall, an army of spectres bathed in sunlight, each soldier slain their souls beneath the footsteps of spring.'


'Bare toes as always the fire flickers, day blinks, potatoes nestled upon our laps we stoop to eat, salt squeezed from our ocean ridden hair.'


'Furrowed fellow the news for 'tis claimed an unmissable whistle has set sail for our shores, said to be all set to bellow nona hora tomorrow.'


'Upon observing this sunday morning's cacophony of yawning, the world appears particularly peppered with sleep stained eyes.'


'Mug of coffee, chocolate, doorstep, puff of smoke... and so I find myself happily watching the people circle, round and around before me.'


'I've no idea what the reason for all of today's fuss is upon the London buses, though "the gnarled crook of villainy" has been suggested...'


'Zzzzzzz.... thud, Zzzzzzz, Zzzzzzz.... thud went the big fat bee at 6:33 this morning as it tried to bumble its way back out of my window.'


'An archaic wooden signpost amongst this morning's cascading furor of footsteps the air a cacophony of concepts, and yet so still its tenor.'


'The cinders have always fallen and so each eve that bespoke darkness remains, beneath the spread of its wings a chorus of shade.'


'A storm through here blew, for beneath my feet lays what once used to be roof...'


'The squeak of wheel, thud of footsteps, barrows piled high with yawning... become oh so familiar the sounds of yet another Monday morning.'


'Sun falling from the heavens, each of her steps blessed by shadow she skirts the fringes our forest, her once white teeth now a soft yellow.'


'Woke to the sound of tumbling spoons, all a clatter as they hobbled on by, their flashes of silver speckling my window with sunlight.'


'My mind, squeezed as if an hourglass, aches beneath the growing weight of so many restive thoughts.'


'...a fleeting dash of light amongst the endlessness of time...'


'It's beneath folds of patience you will find me...'


'A salty ember, calm as can be, nothing but silence and the miraculous touch of a cool breeze...'


'A circle of leaves their shadows dancing as if in flocks upon my toes, a shoal of herbs spilling from their box... the echoes of a clock.'


'After some careful deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that a small conspiracy of moments are to blame for the ransacking of my day.'


'For it's always been louder than I; a deeper and darker and more twisted shade, deeper than any hope in any wishing well.'


'...and so this note to all those who've learnt like me, the secrets of the sadness of the sea.'


'Clouds of intonation stencil the light, transparent and as elusive as the sun.'


'Patches of morning these tumbled drawings, so suddenly so beautiful before my eyes.'


'Silence in the city. Remnants of moon. So still those traces of our footsteps, so fleetingly so perfect; morning's whispers within the dew.'


'The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire.'


'... and so together we seek to pickle beauty, our fingertips will entwine even the softest touch.'


'No better way to start the day than an early morning swim. If there's magic in this world, it's surely to be found in water.'


'...a strangely quiet morning, hardly a voice to be heard, a city without words...'


'A brilliant shaft of sunlight broke through the stone window pane, floorboards rough beneath their limbs; the slow dawn of their eyelids.'


'Palms flat against the cracked earth of home we wait as our world turns, we listen and we hope.'


'...a heavy melody beneath summer's unblinking eye...'


'Woke to the sight of a murder of crows combing our sun-splashed yard.'


'This morning a sun bleached blonde of a morning, clouds heavy as eyelashes; gentle wash of patience tracing the city's slowly unfolding limbs.'


'...time now to go lie beneath that great fire in the sky, listen to the passing of nature's footsteps and contemplate the onset of evening.'


'Nodding to the beat of our feet we tumble, scrawl of our shadows tracing the tarmac, blotting the walls; an inky existence and so our symbols fall.'


'Sun bleached and salty'


'...the slow transition from morning to afternoon.'


'Today's heavy lidded sky settles patiently above the down cast light of our eyes.'


'Thick rimmed glasses, carton of Ribena in hand, young Eric peered out of the lighthouse window; mornings breaking as if ocean waves.'


'...clatter of mugs, click of the kettle, that tumble of spilt milk... puddles of peace in what's otherwise been a most muddle-some of days.'


'The hours have run, and like the slowly sinking sun I'm over and done for another day...'


'A monument to the silence the tilt of my wry expression, substance shifts in our bellies; traces of love sprung from dirt filled fingernails.'


'Mornings like these the soil heaves as chests do, heavy with memory, salted with the splashes of time. Fingers entwined... and so we rise.'


'A madness stirs the depths of my sanity... its current the force that no doubt shaped me.'


'Lying there, lock of yellowed hair wrapped between my toes, I listen as you suppose... maybe... as you juxtapose...'


'Haunted by the perpetual sounds of gravity it's with a philosopher's velocity that I look about me, the world slowly rising from the ground.'


'Today stirs like honey, thick and sickly my sun hangs from the retreating light of the moon...'


'I lower myself and immediately the weight rises from my limbs, eyes close as I feel that most familiar of dreams setting in.'

'Bodies of water, limbs splashed beneath the wreckage, rising within the cold, so suddenly so old as at last our circles break upon the surface.'


'...never so sad, a performance of the real...'


'...as if an antonym of honesty those hidden truths now stand personified, that most concealed of moments so precociously revealed...'


'Feels as if a storm's brewing... of course it is. Tempest's always moving. As sure as a morning's to follow dawn, so too the chaos it brings.'


'Born within October's orbit, as if coming home I woke this morning to that very first sent of autumn.'


'...rain drums the window, as if itself impatient, at this oh so slow, slowest of days...'


'Peppered in shadow the city wakes, puddled by night...
...little more than reclamation, this morning's offering of light.'


'Slung from the rafters his latest disaster drips in drops slowly past her already crumbling eyes.'


'As much as it glides, sprinkles those neat trails of seeds for others to follow, art should also snort, burp, fart and bellow.'


'...a haze of a day spent upon the tips of my fingers...'


'The rattle of my waking bones, as if a shower of stones, regales me.'


'Walking past the inscription, 'Hackney 4eva', I miss more than ever those sounds and smells of early morning September sea.'


'Pen finally topples as my mind begins drawing to a close... lured by the sleepy smell of slowly baking jacket potatoes...'


'Rhyming toads, they puddle their toes, each a liquorish stick slung from their lips; handful of sticks and pockets of stones.'


'An ungainly morning, all elbows and knees and splashes of spilt tea.'


'Sun sinks as evening slowly sweeps its shadow across our shore. The day's words cooling, their echoes as if leaves falling, pepper us all.'


'...I swear I once saw a troop of snails each a tiny wooden pail between its teeth, slip slowly beneath the surface of the water...'


'...perfectly still; without youth, without age; without direction and without losing our way...'


'A sodden and disconcert sky; flicker of weary eyes as the mourning traffic deposits each temperate sigh.'


'A silhouette of patience beneath an impartial star, the truth incomplete only to our eyes... from the distance we always are.'


'...remnants still burn within the ashen bowls of yesterday's hearth. A fallow migration of sustenance, that smoking scent of memory...'


'...one foot trailing the other, an indecision of leadership, neither satisfied to follow the other...'


'Palms flat against the steep sides of yet another heavy lidded morning...
...the slow phasing of dawn's yawn stretched sky.'


'Sadly yes and happily no'


'He awoke...  As did she... with the determination of a sea.'


'...the sound of surfacing still an echo within our ears, we peer toward the shore. A rippled silence. A moment's...'


'An owl's echo orbits the moon. Barrow of speckled stones and old roots, earth washed memories and unclothed truths; the pusher stoops...'


'A deep blue morning sky, mist rising from the banks of the canal; smoke from the boats still swaying sleepily beneath autumn's leafy shroud.'


'A cauldron of a season'


'...slight as a blade of grass, swayed by even the lightest of winds we dance...'


'This night of thorough silences; clear as new born glass, deep as a drum and figurine cold our limbs drawn in graceful diligence.'


'I know of a crow whom insists she'd rather lay lemons than eggs...? ...Bigger and brighter she squawks and tastes a whole lot nicer she retorts, drizzled upon the dead.'


'The fevered rattle of winter bones'


'Clouds of self so often we melt, as if a nebula of needles our silent decent betwixt each sheet of rain... the teardrops of yet another age.'


'...a jar of lament, these feathered crumbs of autumn smoke...'


'...steaming pool of red upon silent snow; a giggle of moths mock the hopeless, damned and disowned. The simmering depth of a hallowed echo...'


'With twigs for fingers the old oak's branches linger slightly longer than he'd wish them to.'


'Clumps of earth and a muddle of puddles pepper the hearth, my world of oceans and rubble.'


I've fallen into the habit of posting these scribbles on twitter as and when they appear. You're most welcome to follow me here; and do leave a comment, it would be great to hear your thoughts.

Until next month,

Sam

Tags for this post: part6, Scribbling, inspiration, influence, samrawlings.

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