The Inspiration Wall

Every writer has a tip for overcoming writers block. Ten years ago I started collecting postcards. Not your typical ‘Greetings from Gunnedah’ postcard, but arty cards, images that provided me with a delightful lift when I looked at them, or were just simply appealing for whatever reason. Over the years these have filled a shoebox and when I moved into my new studio earlier this year I decided to do something with them. So I started, one by one, to put my postcards on the wall adjacent to my desk. One by one I added them in no apparent order except that colours started to dance alongside each other and a visual harmony was created. One by one a story emerged, a story of tiny images that spoke of times in a life, places I had been, impressions that had mattered.

So my wall is now full of an inspiring array of colours and themes from simple free postcards I have collected. And when a word won’t come, or I am needing a distraction so that my mind can work in more feminine or nonlinear ways, I simply turn to my wall of postcards, and let myself be immersed in the ever-changing story and message that they want to share. Sometimes a block is not something to be busted through with a technique, Sometimes, most of the time for me, a block is a signal that I need to bathe my soul in beauty, work differently, step into a different sense of time and being. In yoga there is a concept that what you do off the mat is just as important as what you do on the mat. In writing and creativity, what you do off the page is just as important as what you do on the page.