creative list-making

I love lists. I have lists for shopping, daily and weekly to-do lists, wish lists and of course, a long list of books I want to read! Add a timeline, budgets and goals and the possibilities multiply! Not to mention that lists mean more stationery opportunities: different notebooks for different reasons, colour and fine point pens, sharp pencils …

No surprise then that lists form part of my creative process: timelines, lists of possessions associated with a character; specialist phrases and words which help access unknown worlds. Sometimes the juxtaposition of words or lists can create texture or new connections.

In my third novel, Never Stop Looking, the night-time plays a significant role and this also influenced the overall visual impression that I wanted to convey. I gathered words that would reflect the metallic and monochrome world I imagined Abbie, the main character, to be living in: mica, frost, smoky, gleam, glint.

Abbie repairs and makes theatre costumes for a living. I began a doodle-list about sewing. I thought about sewing classes at school, about outfits my mother made me and my sister when we were younger; I remembered my grandma who crocheted. Memories of sensations and emotions returned alongside words and phrases like threading the bobbin, hook and eye fastening, tacking stitch.

I visited backstage at a local theatre and snooped in the wardrobe departments of other theatres on the internet. I drew on the experience of plays I’d seen and the few I’d had first-hand involvement in.  The list grew not only with sewing terms, but equipment and fabrics and the damage the costumes could suffer that Abbie might have to repair.

In one of those serendipitous moments, I discovered the word pearl on my sewing list and pearl(y) on my metallic list. This word shines at the core of the novel and plays an important part in Abbie’s healing.