An exersise I believe all writers should do at some point in their lives is answer the question 'Why do I write?' much like George Orwell. In 2010, this was my response.
It occurred to me during my A-levels that my art often included words and I began to believe that people are born with the tales inside them, often surfacing in many different ways. In my case this is usually dreams that have strong plots and have heavy visual imagery, which easily transfer into poetry or prose, and are bursting to get out like ink seeping though the spine of a book. The earliest proof of this is that in primary school, I was popular in the playground as I invented elaborate and imaginative games, and I still can picture the fantasy worlds that I created around us all to this very day. It wasn't just play.Writing has always had a place in my life as reading holds a strong role in my family as my mother always encouraged my sister and I to read, and often read to us in childhood, not only short children-stories but fiction such as ‘The Hobbit’ by J.R.R Tolkien. I recall having written short stories though-out year four to six and even being placed in an older class. Once I managed to get a role in my class’s self written musical, ‘Silas Marner’, as ‘Dolly’. This was a big step up from being a nameless shepherd or angel in the nativity.
At the age of fifteen, poetry entered my world in the diaries that I kept, and after my teacher reading a first draft of ‘Dead Truthful’ written for our twist invoking short story coursework based on Roald Dahls ‘lamb to the slaughter’, I was enrolled in a poetry workshop for showing my talent. There were several schools involved and each school had around eight members from year ten and my first work was published in our anthology entitled ‘the mixture’. I had two poems published that were written about two sculptures that appealed to me at Yorkshire Sculpture Park during a visit with writer and sports journalist James Nash.
I believe that my imagination is a strong influence on me but other writers and artists affect it. I often pick up random books but none more influential as ‘The Book of Lost Things’ by John Connolly as this became my favourite book. The novel is about the metaphorical growth of the hero David during World War Two and after going though a crack in a wall of ‘the shrunken garden’ he enters a world that is either were fairy tales originate or are just the delusions of a comer victim. I am hoping to write novel that is as magical as this and also for adults. I am also influenced by writer such as Frances Hodgson-Burnett, who as the writer of the first novel I read first invoked my imagination and Arthur Golden’s ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, Adeline Yen-Mah’s ‘Chinese Cinderella’ and Anchee Min ‘Empress Orchid’ as I enjoy reading eastern based novels and I wish to visit the continent order to be able to write it as a setting accurately.
It occurred to me during my A-levels that my art often included words and I began to believe that people are born with the tales inside them, often surfacing in many different ways. In my case this is usually dreams that have strong plots and have heavy visual imagery, which easily transfer into poetry or prose, and are bursting to get out like ink seeping though the spine of a book. The earliest proof of this is that in primary school, I was popular in the playground as I invented elaborate and imaginative games, and I still can picture the fantasy worlds that I created around us all to this very day. It wasn't just play.Writing has always had a place in my life as reading holds a strong role in my family as my mother always encouraged my sister and I to read, and often read to us in childhood, not only short children-stories but fiction such as ‘The Hobbit’ by J.R.R Tolkien. I recall having written short stories though-out year four to six and even being placed in an older class. Once I managed to get a role in my class’s self written musical, ‘Silas Marner’, as ‘Dolly’. This was a big step up from being a nameless shepherd or angel in the nativity. At the age of fifteen, poetry entered my world in the diaries that I kept, and after my teacher reading a first draft of ‘Dead Truthful’ written for our twist invoking short story coursework based on Roald Dahls ‘lamb to the slaughter’, I was enrolled in a poetry workshop for showing my talent. There were several schools involved and each school had around eight members from year ten and my first work was published in our anthology entitled ‘the mixture’. I had two poems published that were written about two sculptures that appealed to me at Yorkshire Sculpture Park during a visit with writer and sports journalist James Nash.
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| A Photograph I took at Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2007 |
I believe that my imagination is a strong influence on me but other writers and artists affect it. I often pick up random books but none more influential as ‘The Book of Lost Things’ by John Connolly as this became my favourite book. The novel is about the metaphorical growth of the hero David during World War Two and after going though a crack in a wall of ‘the shrunken garden’ he enters a world that is either were fairy tales originate or are just the delusions of a comer victim. I am hoping to write novel that is as magical as this and also for adults. I am also influenced by writer such as Frances Hodgson-Burnett, who as the writer of the first novel I read first invoked my imagination and Arthur Golden’s ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, Adeline Yen-Mah’s ‘Chinese Cinderella’ and Anchee Min ‘Empress Orchid’ as I enjoy reading eastern based novels and I wish to visit the continent order to be able to write it as a setting accurately.
'Why I Write' By Kate Ruston
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All works Copyright Kate Ruston 2014
Please check out my e-books on amazon kindle.
All works Copyright Kate Ruston 2014
All works Copyright Kate Ruston 2014
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