WORDS, AND PICTURES

Writers need words. Obviously.

And sometimes, pictures are useful too.

I'd like to sing the praises of the collage as a handy tool for writers - and everyone else.

The collage above measures just four inches by two. I've recently completed one that's more like two feet square. Size really doesn't matter. Intention does.

Sometimes, words on the screen aren't enough. Sometimes, actually, they're too much. After a few hours/days/weeks at the screen, it's easy to lose touch with other kinds of inspiration. For me, a few minutes spent looking at colour is like finding an oasis in the desert: colour feeds me, slakes my thirst, rounds me out.

Collages have many uses. They remind writers that there are other facets to the imagination than the word. They inspire. They give the fingers a break from repetitive key-tapping, and allow the child in us to cut and colour and paste and play. They bring new ideas to the surface. They affirm our values. And many people use them as a tool to invoke changes they'd like to make in their lives: wishes they'd like to fulfill, goals to achieve, places to go. I knew a church organist who used to spend his holidays playing the piano on cruises. He did a collage of the places he'd most like to visit. They happened. Someone else, single, created a collage of her ideal marriage. Within a year, she'd married a man who looked very similar to the one in her collage. And a man made a collage about the kind of house he'd like to live in, tearing images from magazines. Years later, in his new home, his son pulled out the collage whilst playing. The house they were living in was the same one the man had pasted onto his collage.

Now, I can see the cynical among you raising your eyebrows - but the thing is, it doesn't really matter what you use them for: your collages are an expression of you - where you are or where you'd like to be - and simply embodying those dreams in images and phrases can be immensely affirming.

So, a challenge for the week: give it a go. Your collage may consist of a single image and a word or phrase. It may be full. It may be torn and 'messy' and intuitive (all you pantsers) or formal and contained and purposeful (for the plotters out there). I've just seen a wonderful one, where the maker produced a grid and pasted images of the same size in each square. Very powerful. Of course, words can go in too. And phrases. Anything that appeals to you or energises you. Collages can be 'photographs' of where you are right now. They may be very dark. Often, these 'dark' collages are immensely liberating. Somehow, the act of setting the images down frees one to move on.

The best thing about collages is that they're easy. There are no 'rules'. All you need are:

- a stack of magazines (Sunday supplements, or, if you're feeling richer, buy a selection of House/Country magazines, Travel magazines, anything that's of special interest to you - the R.A. magazine is fabulous for artists, for example - and an 'inspirational' mag like Oprah's 'O', or Spirit and Destiny, or Psychologies)

- a pair of scissors

- a glue stick

- and a large (or small) piece of card or strong paper to stick on.

Put aside an hour - and go for it! Pantsers will tear out images and phrases with abandon, sticking them as they go, trusting that there'll come a point when it feels 'right'. Plotters will move thoughtfully, carefully cutting and piling the images until they have a stack, then spending time arranging and rearranging them on the page. It doesn't matter which method you follow.

You can begin with an intention or a question, eg: 'What I'd like my life to look like' or 'What do I need right now?' or 'Show me some ideas for a short story'; or you can be completely intuitive and go for colours, words and images that draw you. There's no right or wrong. No-one will judge it. It's yours, and you.

What's to lose?

You may just return to your writing renewed.

Ten Great Reasons for Remaining Unpublished

1) I can change genres without having to change my name.

2) I revel in comments such as “Good for you for following your dream”, instead of “I haven’t heard of your book”, “How much then do you earn?” or the classic, “Ooh, would you take a look at my work?”

3) Tax forms? Not for me – I’m an artist, not an accountant.

4) My self-esteem is not dependent on sales figures or reviews on Amazon. It relies solely on my own view of my work until the submission process and even then I can dismiss an agent who’s rejected me as a narrow-minded jerk.

5) I feel no compulsion to spend my Saturday mornings at the local bookshops, dragging my novel to the front of the shelves.

6) I’m not writing to a deadline, there’s no advance to hand back, so I can go on holiday, read Heat magazine or watch Celebrity Big Brother without the slightest twinge of guilt. My time is my own.

7) I can stuff myself with pizza and eat chocolate until I get spots. No one is going to take my photo for a cover or judge my appearance whilst I sign their book.

8) As a struggling writer I’m a far more romantic figure, untainted by commercialism, surviving on my muse and fresh air alone… although my spouse’s salary does help, as does my credit card.

9) I can still dream of a Hollywood deal, in fact I’ve already cast Daniel Craig in the leading role. I’ve practised my answers for Oprah and know exactly what I’ll wear to the television studio.

10) I don’t obsess with self-Googling my name – imagine the ego you’d need to do that? How annoying it would be to find another person of the same name more successful than yourself? Ahem, not that I’d know….


So there you have it! And perhaps my tongue is lodged firmly in my cheek. But come on, you published authors out there – I bet you’d forgotten just how good the wilderness years were!