Writing Spaces, Memories and Inspiration

A lot of writers can tell you off the top of their head the person or people who really got them started writing. Sometimes it's a relative, another writer, a friend, some sort of profound experience.

For me, like many wonderful things in my life, it all comes back to my Grandmother.

For the past few weeks, I've been moving into her former home. At first, I thought it was going to be a depressing thing--filling the shelves with my books and movies mixed with hers, cooking in the kitchen where I learned how to cook, watching movies in the space where I learned how to act, feeding her ancient cats who yowl at me and try to sleep on top of my head. 

But as every shelf got filled, the ache in my heart lessened just a little. And when I finally settled my stuff down and set my desk up in the room where she opened my eyes up to the beauty of words, the room where she gave me my first bit of writing advice at age 6 (always start a book with an attention grabbing first sentence. You have to suck the reader in immediately), I felt greatly comforted. 

It's weird, how places can inspire you and drive you and make you remember things that you have forgotten.

So now I write in a living room that was once a sort of class room for me. A room that shaped my life and my dreams. A room that truly does hold the best memories of my life and I find the space incredibly inspiring and motivating. With the books on the shelves, hers mixed with mine, and the familiar yowl of her cats, I can believe, for a moment, that's she's beside me. And she's probably laughing about the enormous plot hole that I can't figure out how to fill.