Fantastic Tales and Where to Find Them
How a journey into the Amazon inspired my trilogy of novels
I went into the jungle and it cracked my brain. Nothing would ever be the same again.
I was in my mid-20s, and frustrated. I dreamed of writing novels, but had ended up as a news journalist. It was far from the worst job in the world, but the subject matter was shallow, and the prose formulaic. I yearned to unchain my imagination and set my words free. I was desperate to write the kind of stories I loved to read.
But I kept falling at the first hurdle. I could put sentences together well enough, but there was no spark, no inspiration. Every time I attempted to write a short story, or start a novel, I ended up with something lifeless.
And then came that journey into the jungle. It formed part of a larger trip around South America, so I had already visited some awesome places: the salt flats of Bolivia; the plains of Argentina. But nothing could have prepared me for the Amazon Rainforest.
Having grown up in tame, temperate England, entering the Amazon was like stepping onto the surface of another planet. My senses railed, rebelled. Howler monkeys called from the trees above – except they were throwing their voices from miles in the distance. Half submerged logs floated in the shadowy river – until they blinked reptilian eyes. Trees stood wrapped in vines – or snakes – and from all sides came the wailing cackling shriek of creatures I couldn’t see or even begin to identify.
It was intimidating. I wondered if we’d made a mistake, my girlfriend and I, travelling so far from home, so far out of our element. Having boarded a cargo boat in the port city of Iquitos, slung our hammocks up on deck, Lizzie and I had journeyed two days down the Amazon River. The boat stopped at riverside villages that bordered the forest. Picking one of these villages at random, we disembarked and asked locals if they could provide a guide to travel into the jungle. Two fishermen said we could go with them on their next fishing trip. So we loaded our backpacks into their canoe, and set off along tributaries deep into the wilderness.
Our guides knew this place. They could tell by the patterns of bubbles on the surface what fish were swimming below. They could forage for fruit, and knew where to camp away from the worst of the insects, and where to find dry firewood amid the steaming undergrowth.
Lizzie and I had none of these skills. We were at the mercy of our environment. Mosquitoes and other biting things were so numerous that you had to breathe through your nose or else get a mouthful. The heat was a physical weight, pushing you into the canoe. On either bank, the vegetation towered like green walls of a canyon. I wrote in my journal that it often looked like “trees were growing on top of other trees” in their zeal to reach the light – an endless branching skywards.
The sheer exuberance of life here was staggering, every inch of space filled with green, every niche occupied, the air saturated with the sound of birds and tree frogs, the eye constantly drawn to the next flurry of activity: a rainbow flight of parakeets; tamarins scampering along a branch, gathering to watch the canoe pass.
It was daunting and sublime in equal measure. In the golden light of evening, as a rare moment of quiet settled between the trees, we paddled into a wide forest lake. Something bumped into the canoe, made it rock. Another bump, and a third. My mind went to alligators. But in fact it was river dolphins. As they surfaced and rolled and re-submerged, we glimpsed their pink undersides. They swam close, rocked the canoe, and our guides said they were playing.
Something gave way in me then. My imagination fell open, and stories came flooding in. There in the Amazon, amid the shifting shimmering heat, and the steaming shadowy undergrowth, I could see the spirits of the forest. I could hear their games whispering amid the trees. I sensed the true magic of the Earth, and its menace.
That evening, and for days and weeks that followed, I filled notebook after notebook with scribblings and observations and snippets of narrative. Perhaps it’s true that all stories spring from the forest. In any case, there was a before and an after. I went, overnight, from feeling bereft of inspiration, to having dozens of stories I couldn’t wait to write.
Chief among these was a story of Robin Hood. It would be a radical reimagining of the old legends, set in a Sherwood Forest populated by gods and monsters. In time, this seed of an idea would grow into my first novel, Shadow of the Wolf.
But not yet. First it was back to London, and newspapers, and for a while grey city streets and drab journalism copy were again my reality.
But finally Lizzie and I moved to a rural part of England. Once again I was close to nature. The green hills and wooded valleys of Gloucestershire are very different to the Amazon. But the rainforest was part of me now. So as I roamed the English countryside, walking and running the woodland paths, these toothless woods and the untamed jungle began to merge. All around me, the once-mighty wildwoods of England grew up once more. Sherwood was reborn, primal and awesome. It became a place steeped in myth and mystery, where the old gods of the Earth play games with human lives.
Robin Hood of the traditional tales – the noble hero dressed in Lincoln green – this Sherwood Forest would eat him alive. The outlaw who haunted these depths would be something older, darker, and more elemental. He would be one with his surroundings, and would sense his environment in a whole new way. Quite naturally, then, I knew that my Robin Hood would be blind. From there, my image of him took shape, until he became something more than human, a mythical figure who wears the pelt of a slain wolf-god, and wields a bow of pure shadow.
First, forget everything you’ve heard.
Robin Hood was no prince, and he was no dispossessed lord.
He didn’t fight in the Crusades. He never gave a penny to the poor.
In fact, of all those Sherwood legends, only one holds true: Robin was blind.
No, even that’s not right. Truer to say: Robin Hood didn’t see with his eyes. Perhaps, after all, he was the only one who saw clearly in this place of illusion and lies.
Forget, too, all you know of Marian.
She was never a nun, or an abbess. Much less a damsel in distress.
She was the Destroying Angel. The most desperate and deadly of them all.
Look around you, and listen. A wasted world now, shrunken and burned. A howling winter and a silent spring.
But it’s all still here, lurking amid the mist.
A world of gods and monsters, rolling their final dice.
A time of heroes and demons, and the horror that shadows both.
The world of Robin Hood…
Shadow of the Wolf is just the beginning. Over the next twelve months it will be followed by two sequels, Dark Fire and Wildwood Rising. Beyond that, there are dozens of other tales I want to tell. In going into the Amazon, I entered another world. The inspiration I carried home feels limitless.
What about you? Have you ever travelled somewhere life-changing? Please tell us about it in the comments. Or send me a message.
Thanks for being here, and happy reading!
Tim
Yes, where our stories come from is endlessly fascinating. How much of it is a melding of other stories we've loved, and how much do we draw on direct experience? I developed a meditation/visualisation on this subject that I do sometimes before I sit at my desk to help get my writing flowing. I'll describe it in a future post in case it's of help to anyone else. But yes, of all direct experiences, I think travel is invaluable. It can open your senses and alter your perspective, sometimes in radical ways. It sounds like you've had some fantastic adventures of your own - perhaps that helps explain how you're so prolific in your storytelling. The Madrid experience sounds particularly eye-opening! Thanks for your comments - I'll look forward to exploring this topic with you again...
This was compelling reading; thank you. It makes me wonder if I 'need' to travel somewhere astonishing in order to get the inspiration to write better... I think most of my inspiration comes from other books, games and movies, and everyday life. Then again, I went to some awesome places when I was younger, too (all on short term Christian mission trips...): camping in the Mozambican 'bush', working in the drug slums of Madrid, and white water rafting on the Nile would top my list. Oh to live in the countryside and not in a city, though. The natural world is where it's at!