STIMULUS

According to my American Heritage Dictionary, the meaning of the word stimulus is—“Something causing or regarded as causing a response. Something that incites or rouses to action.” As writers we can’t wait for stimulus. We pick up a pad and pencil or sit down at our computer and begin. At the end of the day, we may tap the delete key and erase every word we wrote but when morning comes we begin again.
But sometimes an ahhah moment occurs and we jump out of bed, throw on a robe, and turn on the computer and a flow of words gushes forth like some magic waterfall. Our brains cells have been stimulated by a book, an article, a painting, music, someone we love or a stranger passed on the street.
I remember the effect stories my mother would tell me on rainy days had on me, the first time I read Edna Ferber’s Show Boat in the school library and decided to become an actress, and the love of words resulting from a class in Shakespearean plays I took at night. Touring with shows led to a love of travel and articles.
In Verona I stopped by Giuetta’s House—an idyllic setting for a lover’s tryst. Romeo’s home is at 2-4 Via Arche Scaligere behind the Della Scala cemetery but in Verona, Juliet gets top billing and the story is called Giuletta and Romeo. The houses are fiction but it doesn’t matter—visitors believe. Young girls lean over the balcony and recite, the lovelorn leave messages and the setting was used as a backdrop for a motion picture.
Verona was a crossroads with merchants coming through for centuries. The Capulets, it’s said, were hat merchants and their competitors were the Montagues. A novel, titled La Giulietta, written by Luigi da Porto, was translated into French in 1525. But it is said that da Porto adapted the story from one in a collection written by Masuccio Salernitano, a poet who lived from 1410-1475, and is the story of Mariotto and Giannozza. Others claim it is da Porto’s tragic personal story—he fell in love with Lucia Sarvognan but his uncle's relationship with her guardian doomed the romance. The Italian Renaissance had a great influence on English poetry and drama and the Italian novella became extremely popular in 16th century England. Shakespeare turned La Giulietta into a long-running play titled Romeo and Juliet, around 1595. A festival of Shakespeare’s work may be enjoyed every July and August at the Roman Theatre at Rigaste Redentore—the perfect setting in the perfect city for a production of Romeo and Juliet. Ballets, musical comedies and operas have also been influenced by the Bard’s work.
In our time, P.D. James has channeled Jane Austin with her (or their) mystery Death Comes To Pemberley. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre inspired many future authors. The most famous is Wide Sargasso Sea, written in 1966 by Jean Rhys. The most successful novel written by Rhys and a prequel, the book tells the story of an unhappy marriage from the point of view of the first Mrs. Rochester. Many other authors have reworked the story including a 2010 novel that has Jane battling with vampires.
Who was your role model? What, where and when were you stimulated, inspired and hooked on writing?

Bests,

Elise