Getting creative writing inspiration.

There was one activity in the Future Learn 'Start Writing Fiction' course that I found to be a great source of inspiration; it encouraged me to look in different places across different mediums to get ideas. The activity suggested to tune into a random radio station and listen to the first couple of phrases spoken and use them to form an idea that could be the start of a story.

This really interested me! With a background in radio presentation and production I have so often turned to literature to get inspiration for features and dramas. Never had it crossed my mind to listen to the radio to inspire my writing! Simply genius!

So I fired up my radio app and scrolled through a few stations that were playing music (with no lyrics!) and settled on BBC Radio 4. The phrases I heard were: "Nigel went overboard.", "What? He jumped off the ship?" I would never have imagined this from scratch and decided to use this as a potential starting point for a short story; here's what I ended up with...

Looking back now, I can see that I had panicked. As I bobbed up and down, clinging to the life belt that had been tossed overboard to me, I cursed at my stupidity. One day this would be a story to look back on and laugh about but as I thrashed my legs around trying to stay afloat in the warm waters of the Mediterranean I can assure you that I was not amused.

Until today I had been having a splendid holiday, a week in the sun with my brother after a stressful summer of exams was just what the doctor ordered. It had been my idea to spend the day at sea on a glass-bottomed boat and as the ocean sprayed behind us as we skipped across the water, I felt alive.

After lunch however, things went horribly wrong, we had been sat staring through the glass panel in the floor of the boat at hundreds of fish - every colour of the rainbow! Then I heard a familiar voice that sent panic coarsing through my veins. It was my chemistry teacher, Mrs. Rowland.

I cannot tell you precisely what was going through my mind as I stripped to my underpants and belly-flopped into the salty waters. In hindsight this was a move that I deeply regretted.