I'm going to change this up a bit. Instead of analyzing writers here, I'd like to stick in excerpts that have resonated with me. As this blog is a selfish endeavor, posting things that motivate me and help my own writing... well, that seems appropriate. Also, it's the words I carry around in my head and it is the words that inspire. So.
She was a flamboyant depressive; a woman who kept a revolver in the duster drawer, and the bullets in a tin of Pledge. A woman who stayed up all night baking cakes to avoid sleeping in the same bed as my father. A woman with a prolapse, a thyroid condition, an enlarged heart, an ulcerated leg that never healed, and two sets of false teeth - matt for everyday, and a pearlised set for 'best'.
It's a bit from one of my favorite writers, Jeanette Winterson, describing her mother in the beginning of her memoir, "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?". This is the description I aspire to write in my fiction... maybe one day I'll reach for it in non-fiction as well, but micro-toddler steps for now. I have no idea who her mother is, and I can't conceptualize a person who behaves as Winterson describes, but I have to know her. The words have captured me and not only do I want to discover more about this odd woman, I want more of this ugly-beautiful poetry. These words. You want it too-- I know you do.
She filled the phone box. She was out of scale, larger than life. She was like a fairy story where size is approximate and unstable. She loomed up. She expanded. Only later, much later, too late, did I understand how small she was to herself. The baby nobody picked up. The uncarried child still inside her.
I often read these sorts of excerpts when my own words run dry or feel flat. What do you read when you want inspiration? What style teases words out of your belly and onto the page?