We grab our inspiration in various places, here is a sampling of where mine has come from:
Sarah Polley
I think it’s safe to say there is nothing that I have taken in by Sarah Polley that hasn’t moved me. Most notably, Stories We Tell and Take This Waltz. Both of these pieces, one documentary and one fiction, has left me in awe about the complexities of life. I found peace and solidarity with the concept behind ‘Take This Waltz’ as it shows the process of a woman coming to terms with her choices in life, finding out her why’s, her how’s and how maybe life is not as simple as we thought it was. Stories We Tell gave me a deep dive as a human and storyteller how perspective and personality is everything. We are marked by our families, our DNA and our circumstances, no matter how we may fight it all.
Diana Gabaldon
This year I have been quite literally taken by Diana’s Outlander Series. I have only read four out of the eight already published in the series. (apparently there is to be 10 books in total.) What grabbed me with Diana’s writing, is her ability to weave together a time travel concept into history, romance, adventure, and so many more genres. She writes her characters deeper than three dimensional and has a way of making everything mundane in a persons life an integral part of the story. You believe in the characters as much as you believe in yourself, because that is how much she is able to give you in her writing.
Maya Angelou
Although I read ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ when I was a teenager, I fell in love with Maya’s words as I listened to her in various interviews. Interviews such as these: ‘Power of Words’, ‘Be a Rainbow in Someone Else’s Cloud’ , Best Advice Given, captivate me & still does. Her words are timeless, empowering and insightful and I turn to them when I need reminders to come back to myself, my values and my worthiness as a human. I will always hold her brevity, sincerity and intolerance for inhumanity close to my heart.
Elizabeth Gilbert
What I love about Elizabeth Gilbert is that not one of her works is remotely the same. Every book she has ever written is a complete departure from the last. It’s as if she shows up for the project and let’s it speak and if anything, the only thing that I can put my finger on about her, is that her own personal physical voice has a distinct soul to it that speaks of raw unashamed re-learned childlike abandon. My favourite of her works: ‘Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear’, ‘City of Girls’ and various of her clippings of words captured on the internet.
This short list didn’t even touch on ‘Anne Lamott, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Shonda Rhimes, The Brontë Sisters, Liv Constantine’…. it’s an endless list.