What inspires you?

This is probably the question I get asked most as an author: what inspires you to write? The answer isn't complicated and one word sums it up: beauty. I am inspired by beauty. The tricky bit is that I find many things beautiful (and not just objects, but actions and thoughts), and sometimes they are things that other people might not find beautiful...

photo: afternoon beach © Dianna Hardy, 2014

• nature - almost any landscape or scenery
• historical buildings
• daunting, modern skyscrapers
• innovative design - new gadgets for practical things really press my beauty button
• colours and paints - in fact, I used to paint and draw quite a lot. Watercolours, pastels and graphite pencils were my favourite mediums. I also love make-up palettes. Looking at a beautifully laid out, pigmented, shimmery palette fills me with nice feelings, even though I only wear make-up less than half of the week, if that
• body art - tattoos, especially, are beautiful!
• the colours of nature - they simply can't be replicated or reproduced by man
• people - looking at an attractive man or woman (what I consider attractive) is always pleasurable - yes, man OR woman. Eyes capture me more than anything else, followed by how they wear a smile, followed by how they carry themselves as a person. And yes, I firmly believe beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is unequivocal. Everything we see is a perception
• people's thoughts - words, quotes, and the thoughts they keep hidden; the ones they do not say but that you can see between their words
• open-minded intelligence, coupled with sensitivity
• circles - I love circles, balls, spheres, domes
• the earth and the moon - especially when you can see the shadow of the moon making it spherical
• shadows - they are both mysterious and beautiful
• the way children play and act, so filled to the brim with unsuppressed life - I wish we would never lose this as we grow up. Having said that, I think I was an "old" child, and got younger as I got older
• raw emotion - this is beautiful to watch unfold when it is led by pure intention, whether it's anger, love, or fear
• conflict - this can be beautiful for the above reason, but it is also painful to witness. However, I am one of those people who can find beauty in pain and vulnerability. This doesn't mean I wish it in others, just that I see the beauty in it
• passion - for the same reasons as 'raw emotion'. Too few people are brave enough to be passionate about life, and to follow their passions
• travel, and others' stories of travel - I am a wanderluster at heart and always will be
• animals - every single one. (Although I'm less partial to furry caterpillars - I'll take spiders over furry caterpillars!)
• can I say nature again? I so love nature - everything we need can found in it. It provides for us and nourishes us, and that is beautiful in every respect

I find beauty in all the above, and more than can be listed, and writing is the tool I use to express that beauty. I also love trying to capture it in photographs - a hobby I shall be spending a little more time doing this year if I can.

What inspires you? Let us know!

Dianna xxx

The theme song of my life.

Elizabeth asked me, if my life had a theme song, what would it be and why?

Okay, I can't actually answer this in the way she might have hoped, and I totally can't narrow it down to one song only. So, what I've done is embedded four songs that touch me deeply and take me to a part of myself inside where there is just me and no one else. So, these aren't songs I share with anyone else - they are "alone" songs in which I occasionally find solace. Truth is, there are more than four songs that do this for me, but these are the four that I've happened to pick out today.

Why?

No, sorry, I can't tell you why ... because I can't really put it into words. The feelings they invoke run too deep. You're just going to have to wonder why, if you're that intrigued.

Dianna's life ... in four songs:

Perceptions and Deceptions: The Drunk Lady and The Lost Swan

I had nothing to blog about last night. This morning I thought, "Powers That Be, please help me out here - my mind is blank - I don't want to spend every blog  post talking about how much I hate pigeon-holing my books into genres!"

They listened :)

I was walking my daughter to school today, and we were walking through the car park of her school, which is also the car park of a very large park, with a huge pond to the left, where you find ducks, geese, swans and some other birds...

And there in the middle of the car park was a cygnet. Probably a "teenager" in swan years - it still had its baby grey colouring, but was almost full grown swan size. It was clearly lost and trying to find its way back to the pond and its mother. I slowed the pushchair down so as not to scare it - swans are known for attacking if they're frightened or angry. Of course, my daughter was intrigued.

To my left, there suddenly appeared a drunk man, looking fairly pissed off to be awake first thing in the morning, strutting / waddling into the car park with a beer can in one hand and a humongous beer gut. My first reaction was "Ew..." followed by, "I have my daughter sandwiched between a could-be unpredictable swan, and a could-be unpredictable drunk man."

As the events played out in front of me, I realised that I had made a huge error of judgement. Huge. Which, although maybe understandable because I was thinking about the safety aspects with my daughter around, was also mildly annoying because I like to think I'm not a judgemental person... Firstly, the drunk man was a drunk woman (my bad!). Secondly, the drunk and the swan immediately formed some kind of connection. She started to speak to it and coaxed it back towards the pond. I immediately thought of the story, The Ugly Duckling. The drunk woman, maybe because she was drunk, had no fear of the swan and no barriers up at all. In return the swan gave her its trust and followed her back to the pond. The drunk woman was the ugly duckling - she had been a little girl once, undoubtedly playing make believe that she would one day be a princess, or the superhero... For a split second there, she sort of was the superhero...

We form so many judgements about everything, based on what we are conditioned with - based on what we think we should see; on what others want us to see... It stops us from seeing the truth. I wonder, when the time comes, who will actually be the one to destroy The Witching Pen, or if it will even be destroyed at all.

Let's hope so... because it's time to wake up. The drunk woman and me are not that different - we both have a problem fitting into society. But whereas I immerse myself in writing, she immerses herself in alcohol. The only difference is the reaction; the response to life; how we cope. I wonder if any of us are really that different from each other.