Monthly Archives: February 2015

“Writers – and artists in general – need time and space to look out the window.”

This is only one piece of wisdom Maria and I heard from Lawrence Hill about a month ago. Author of the best-selling Book of Negroes (and a friend of mine from many years ago), Larry spoke of creativity, finding voice, research, injecting humour in serious subjects, and my favourite – needing time to stare into space.

I’m staring at my fireplace right now to craft this post. The comforting flame. The glowing logs. The soft heat they exude. I am mesmerized by their gloaming. My thoughts are centred on creativity and opening the mind to the possibilities. When he stared into space, Larry created in Aminata Diallo, a protagonist with the most to lose– a black midwife, stolen from her village as a child, later to bring new life into a world that beat her, abused her, hated her and every other like her. Larry found the voice of a teenage girl out his window. He reached far outside himself to imagine her – what she looked like, sounded like and how she felt. He imagined what she saw when she looked across the ocean toward her home. He imagined the questions she would ask; the anger she would carry; whom she would meet along her way and what they would mean to her. Much of his story was sparked by researched, yes, but he fleshed it out in his mind while he looked across his back yard or the lake at his friend’s cottage he sometimes borrowed for a week or two to write.

I stare at the flames and feel my mind quiet as I type. It is tonight’s window. I imagine my next installment to the Messy Art of Motherhood. So much more to come. I will return and find my creativity out the window. Maybe out their windows, Maria will create new creepy witches; Beckie new tormented teens; and Sharon new spirited children.

There is no limit to what lays beyond our windows or within the fire. We just need to let go and look.