How my younger self gave me all I need for lockdown inspiration.

If I’m in search of creative inspiration, I know what will usually yield results. Finding a buzzy coffee shop in an unfamiliar city, taking a train or plane journey somewhere, or just wandering around one of my favourite cities. I know exactly what I need to get energised.

But of course right now I can’t go to any of those places or do any of those things.

When the lockdown came, I said to myself I’d aim to carve out time every day to work on a new book project. But it’s hard getting inspiration when you’re stuck indoors facing a blank screen and a flashing cursor.

But there’s something in the attic that’s giving me what I need: 27 Moleskine notebooks stretching back 13 years. 

So that’s 13 years of my reflections and observations. Many of which were noted down when I was ‘on fire’: clarity on the Eurostar back from Paris, a light bulb moment on the plane to Madrid, observations by the canal in Amsterdam. Essentially it’s a library of my thoughts, ideas and learnings curated from a variety of experiences, projects and environments.

13 years of sparks from when I was doing the things that aren’t available to me right now. Gold dust!

So if someone had said to me, just start writing - I’d have struggled. What I love about revisiting the pages of my notebooks is how my younger self has everything the older me needs … in this pile of books, these are the raw materials, the building blocks for my next book.

Perhaps it was foresight, or just something I’ve always needed to do - making notes about things that may or may not have seemed important at the time. Because we have lots of ideas daily, but it’s writing them down that makes the difference. And as it turns out, this practice has come to my rescue in these turbulent times. 

So my advice - get a notebook and write it down.