Hearing voices

I was reading an article about Jodi Picoult yesterday in which she talked about her inspiration and her approach to writing fiction. No, it wasn't the plot that came to her first, she said - it was the characters. And she "got to know" those characters by living with them for a while and listening to them; from that a plot would fall into place.

It was something of a relief to read of other writers "hearing voices"! For both fiction and poetry I often find that voices "speak" to me in different settings. Products of a fertile imagination they may be, but it's from "listening" to them that I get both ideas and enthusiasm.

A few days ago I was walking in Bishop's Knoll in Bristol. Now owned by the Woodland Trust, this area was the site of a large house with extensive gardens well into the twentieth century; the grounds are now slowly being opened up again, although the house was pulled down some time ago. But during the First World War it was owned by a man who had made his fortune out in Australia. Many Anzac troops were fighting in Europe alongside their British counterparts and, in gratitude for what Australia had done for him, he decided to open up a hospital in his home for their wounded who were evacuated back to this country. More than 2,000 passed through the house in the four years of the conflict. And I "found" a couple of them walking in the gardens, wanting their story told a hundred years later ... and very insistent they've been too. How could I not oblige them?! Great material from which to write.

Woods still echoing with
Aussie voices ...