A picture says a thousand words?

Things go right and things go wrong when you’re writing. Some mornings your character voices (in your head) are indistinct, right down to a whisper. So you sit there and look at your screen and place your fingers on the keys. And you wait. And wait. Then you type something and it’s all wrong. Your characters are up to mischief. They hide, are devious, play games in your mind instead of coming to life in the scene you know you want/must/need to write. Even stoked to the ears with caffeine and digestive biscuit, turning three times in a circle and saying abracadabra doesn’t help.

And then I remember. Look at the pictures!!

I have amassed a library of wonderful, evocative digital photos over time, each bearing a relevance to the story I’m writing. I even have personal photos, browned and torn, but doubly beautiful in their own tarnished way because they are unique. However, two of my favourites are these. The watercolour is one that Chris painted for me some years ago. The other is from a recent Google search. Both represent Terry Doyle, Bella’s poor little brother from Christmas to Come. These two street kids and their fight for survival are what the story is all about. By a happy accident or coincidence or fate, the coloured one was painted for a character I had not yet written. But when I found the black and white photo some time later I KNEW exactly what my story was going to be. Weird isn’t it, the magic that fate has in store for us?