Don’t let that shark bite off your motivation
As all surfing followers will know, at the age of 13 Bethany Hamilton was on track to become one of the world’s best surfers — until her arm was bitten off by a shark.
While this would have been enough to scare most people out of the ocean forever, she was back surfing within three weeks.
Competing at the highest levels, including the World Surf League, she has achieved numerous victories. Her story is featured in the film Soul Surfer, and she is also a best-selling author and motivational speaker, inspiring millions with her message of hope and perseverance.
Sometimes adversity makes us more determined than ever.
I don’t want to tempt fate, but I have never been attacked by a shark. Oh, an aggressive barracuda raked my foot when I was aged about seven, but only after I had somehow landed it while fishing with some very helpful Arabs in Qatar (they knew how to staunch the bleeding). They also helped me land a grouper that was bigger then me.
But there’s often a shark waiting to chomp off your inspirational moments.
For me, inspiration began in an English lesson at boarding school. One day, evening prep was to write an essay on MacBeth and I hadn’t got a clue how to answer the question. So I flipped to the cover of my textbook which featured a graphic image of Dunsinane Castle and the encroaching Birnam Wood.
I used my embryonic creative writing skills to describe the scene and thus avoid answering the question, hoping my talent would impress the English teacher, Mr Cormack.
He wasn’t impressed. He called out my feeble effort in front of Class 4R, announcing that my work was too descriptive, and I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.
That could have been my shark moment. But it wasn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The teacher, who became a leading politician with a knighthood and later Lord Cormack, was no shark as you’ll discover if you bear with me. You see, while Mr Cormack began his inevitable climb to greatness, I went on to become a humble journalist. Yes, I could write. I was inspired to turn my embarrassment into triumph. It took a while, though.
Many years later, on the publication of my first novel, Libertas, I got in touch with him. By then he had been knighted and Sir Patrick was soon to be Lord Cormack. This time around, he was kind enough to give me a decent mark. “Forrest has the gift of a true storyteller,” he said, with a hint of a chuckle in his email.
When he died earlier this year, I felt a genuine tug of sadness and gratitude, and have now dedicated two of my subsequent novels to him. His essay judgement always stayed with me and now forms part of my answer whenever I am asked Where My Inspiration Comes From (click the link to find out more).
Keep digging
More recently, I have been fortunate to find inspiration with a team of archaeological diggers uncovering ancient history just down the road from where I live on the delightful island of Alderney.
Our team, Dig Alderney, is bent (literally and figuratively) on scraping away aeons of history to piece together a fantastic storyline. And at every layer we confirm my theory that the Romans first came to this Channel Island in around 56 or 55BC when Julius Caesar was conquering Gaul and had set his sights on Britain, just across the English Channel.
The area is crowded with archaeological features. Some relate to German activity (Alderney was occupied during WWII) or Victorian fortifications inside and around the 4th Century Fort. Modern roads partly conceal what we know is an Iron Age cemetery discovered in 2019.
Two skeletons were discovered back then. That’s when I got involved after arriving on the island to write, and I was given backroom jobs like pot-washing, shovelling and sandwiches. Just to be there is a privilege!
This is now a long-term project to learn more about the Roman and Iron Age settlement on Longis Common, a few yards from my home. How extensive is the Iron Age cemetery, and where was the village in which these people lived?
I already know the answers because they’re in my head, as you would expect from a historical fiction author (yup, we authors can make the facts fit the narrative anytime we like!).
You can find more about this if you read My Neighbours the Celts and Romans posted by my publisher, Sapere Books.
This year, Sapere Books has published three of my novels – Sea of Flames, Libertas and Vipers of Rome, with a fourth, Line in the Sand, imminent. I’m now working on a new series, The Britannia Conspiracy, set in the period during Caesar’s invasion of Gaul when he set his sights on Britain. Espionage, politics, betrayal and the tensions between love and loyalty abound. Keep in touch through my website or subscribe to this newsletter below.
I would also recommend signing up to the Sapere Books Facebook page which specialises in great historical writing with many historical fiction authors and eye-witness accounts from wartime veterans.