Why does grit get us in the groove?
Marking a year since the Covid pandemic really hit home, Rosalind Moody examines why crisis inspires us to create
Rosalind Moody
Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’ve got a fantastic book idea up your sleeve. What event were you inspired by – what was the crisis your protagonist overcame? Fiction or non-fiction, there’s no book on Earth that’s all sunshine and rainbows, because if there was, there would be no addictive story arc, no lesson to be learnt and no wisdom to be transferred. Even the fluffiest children’s books feature crisis of some small sort. So what crisis, personal or collective, inspires your story?
Great British Spirit
At the end of May 2020 writer Charlotte Browne was commissioned by publisher John Blake to write 50,000 words in two months for her new book Great British Spirit. No prizes for guessing which crisis inspired her book. As the pandemic continued to change all of our lives more permanently each day, Charlotte researched dozens of both modern and historical heroes who overcame big or small crisis in quintessentially ‘British’ ways, a lot of them instrumental in the victory of ‘history’s greatest catastrophe,’ the Second World War. The term ‘great British spirit’ or ‘Blitz spirit’ as it sometimes known is defined in the book’s introduction as ‘a theme of courage in adversity, in all its many and varied forms’. Inspiring? Absolutely. Also problematic? Definitely: it can diminish the sting of victims’ real trauma in one fell swoop. But Charlotte’s updated interpretation of it as representing ‘unswerving optimism, determination and humour’ feels true of my experience of the last year since the UK went into lockdown, and are certainly four words I’d use to describe any fantastic book.
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