Apples, Boredom & Enid Blyton
Reflections on creative mess and inspiration!
I saw my first robin today. And, yes, I know they exist all year round, but as December approaches, his appearance suddenly felt “festively appropriate”. He landed on a huge rose shrub growing not far from our back door. A rose shrub that is magically still producing beautiful white blooms, even though the temperatures have fallen into single figures and there is a hint of frost in the air each morning.
The sight of this little red-breasted bird had me thinking that spotting him at any other time of year would make him seem rather out of place. I guess the same could be said now about the rose shrub!
This festive vignette made me think about inspiration and the innocuous sparks that often ignite it. When I first dreamt up Kobo Moon and its associated worlds, it was with the idea of taking stories and characters we took for granted and flipping them on their head. Twisted Tales was born out of an idea of presenting an alternative narrative, but with humour and lots of chaos.
As I touched on in my post, Twisted Tales: Where Stories Come To Play, the Brothers Grimm and others have already done this, taking very gruesome folk stories and rewriting them as something more charming and wholesome. In doing so, they have provided characters and narratives that have inspired generations and provided the building blocks for multi-billion-dollar businesses. (I may harbour delusions of achieving the same!)
For these guys, stories passed down through the centuries proved to be the spark they needed. So where does my inspiration come from? Here are a few examples, and they might surprise you!
Apples: In the summer of this year (2025), a film was released about William Tell. After seeing the trailer several times over a few weeks, my brain suddenly floated the idea that apples feature often in history and folklore! Random, I know, but think about it. Issac Newton reportedly had one land on his head and discovered gravity, the aforementioned William Tell shot an arrow through one on his son’s head, and in fairy tales, apples are forever being poisoned and offered to innocent young women.
Cue two apple-influenced short stories, written but as yet unedited, and a card game. I spent hours creating the artwork for the cards, refining the game play, designing a card box to keep them in and printing, cutting and glueing everything into a “finished-if-rough-around-the-edges” prototype! For the past three months, this game has sat on my desk, waiting to be “refined” into a photo-worthy product and presented for sale.
Boredom: Many, many years ago, when my children were still little, I created a “Bored Bucket”. Essentially, a bucket filled with wooden lollipop sticks on to which were written various activities intended to ward off the inevitable cry of “I’m bored” during the long school holidays. The activities weren’t particularly challenging - ‘read a book’, ‘watch a movie’, ‘play dress up’...but surprisingly they all seemed to love the idea and regularly consulted “the bucket”! It did help cure boredom for a time and had the added benefit of getting them to play together and inspire their own play.
Recently, I rediscovered the Bored Bucket, packed away in a basket full of long-forgotten games. And it got me thinking about creating a new, more challenging version. So, instead of a bored bucket, we now have “Bored Buttons”! I’m quite excited by these; there is a lovely mix of challenges, as well as physical and creative activities. They are currently at the pre-production phase, with all the design work done. Unfortunately, my cat has decided that for this month at least, the spare space on my desk is his new bed, and taking up what little space I have available to “craft”! These will have to wait until he decides to move on elsewhere.
Enid Blyton: A perennial source of inspiration, Ms Blyton filled my bookshelves as a child, with many of these books managing to survive long enough for my own children to read them too. My eldest daughter messaged me a couple of nights ago to tell me there is a film based on The Magic Faraway Tree coming out next year. These books were their favourite when they were little, with each book being read and re-read countless times. Just as I did growing up. It’s wonderful that the adventures of Silky, Moonface, the children, Saucepan Man and Dame Washalot continue to delight audiences, especially when you consider The Enchanted Wood was first published in 1939.
For a long while, the Faraway Tree series and The Magical Wishing Chair books have served as story sparks for me. They have inspired elements of my upcoming Yume World, and I think I have come up with a short story for my Twisted Tales series that follows in a similar, magical vein. I won’t give away anything more, but I’m excited to get started on these new projects come the New Year.
So there you have it. Three examples of inspiration coming from very different sources. Let me know in the comments below where your inspiration comes from. Is it real-life experiences? Your surroundings? History (or the future)? Or is it life’s little absurdities, sent to challenge and annoy you!
💜 Georgina - The Creative Spark Fuelling The Kobo Moon Forge!