candace robb
walking the Mean Streets of Medieval York
Unexpected Visitors
It’s late summer, my novel A Triple Knot has been out for almost eight weeks, and I find myself immersed in an idea I shelved years ago. Over the past week several intriguing characters have materialized in my office with some sense of urgency, as if breaking out of an irritatingly prolonged suspension in the shadows of my subconscious and impatient to be heard at last. The concept and the place are familiar, but not these characters. I am meeting them as if for the first time, bewitched by their candor, their wit, their stories. Now is not the time to ask whether this is going anywhere. One breath of doubt might dissolve this dream, and I’ll never know what might have been. Such is the creative spark–easily doused by skepticism.
I love how Clarissa Pinkola Estes described this moment in Women Who Run With the Wolves: “…balancing a big cardhouse of ideas on a single fingertip,… and…carefully connecting all the cards using tiny crystalline bones and a little spit, and if [I] can just get it all to the table without it falling down or flying apart, [I] can bring an image from the unseen world into being.”
candace robb 
One is tempted to speculate the concept to be a mystery and the place to be either York or Edinburgh. But might it be Wales? That would fit with “an unseen world”.
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Mystery, check. Beyond that I’m reluctant to say more at the moment–still balancing it all, holding my breath.
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When characters demand your attention, I think you should give it! Revel in it!
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You’re so right, and I am!
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Possibly inspired by Efa and her stories? Conjured?
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Interesting suggestion, Jacqui!
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This 6am window seat in an Edinburgh youth hostel seems to be where my next book has started to let me write it. A ‘like’ from you on my blog led me here, and lo, the ultimate let-start-writing blog post. Thank you!
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You are most welcome. It’s mutual–your blog takes me off to places remembered or to add to lists of future visits, and place is a strong inspiration for my writing.
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… I post churches and places on Facebook more than I add them to my blog (I’m not as good at either as I ought to be, but Facebook is quicker) — do send a Friend request if interested. I’ve yet to create a separate author page — again, it’s just about time — so I can’t guarantee there won’t be limited family stuff, too. But feel free. I try to post bearing in mind that half my Friends are there for the medieval places rather than idle gossip!
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Thank you for the offer. But, like you, I limit my distractions. For me, I chose to have author fb accounts but no personal page, so have no way to “friend.”
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