Generating Ideas (2) - Talking Animals...
I've always had a love of Australian Native Animals... I've especially had a soft spot for wombats, ringtail possums and bilbies, which is more than likely why they feature so predominantly in the novel.
My fascination for wombats started during my childhood on the farm, where we occasionally saw them in the wild. I found it so hard to believe that such relatively large creatures could live underground, and I recall my dad remarking about how quickly they could burrow.
Also during my "formative" years I first encountered a ringtail possum. We found a very young one not far from our house, who had barely survived an encounter with some other animal. It was severly battered, missing fur and looked quite ill. Mum took it in and nursed it back to health. During this time, I tried everything I could think of to find a way to talk to it - wishing that it could respond in kind: it's no surprise therefore that my first story features talking animals!
I didn't learn about bilbies until I was much older and certainly never saw one in the wild. In fact the first time I viewed this animal, was when I saw a pair of them at Berry Springs Wildlife Park in the Northern Territory. They looked like such unassuming creatures - and so fragile, considering the unknown future of the species. I suppose that's why I picked a bilby to lead the children into the Land of Dalriada, and the very reason why creatures such as those, whose habitats are threatened by man and feral animal, would find themselves in such a mythical, yet protective land, in the first place.
It's these beautiful Australian creatures, along with characters based upon my own children, that form the start of my novel...
My fascination for wombats started during my childhood on the farm, where we occasionally saw them in the wild. I found it so hard to believe that such relatively large creatures could live underground, and I recall my dad remarking about how quickly they could burrow.
Also during my "formative" years I first encountered a ringtail possum. We found a very young one not far from our house, who had barely survived an encounter with some other animal. It was severly battered, missing fur and looked quite ill. Mum took it in and nursed it back to health. During this time, I tried everything I could think of to find a way to talk to it - wishing that it could respond in kind: it's no surprise therefore that my first story features talking animals!
I didn't learn about bilbies until I was much older and certainly never saw one in the wild. In fact the first time I viewed this animal, was when I saw a pair of them at Berry Springs Wildlife Park in the Northern Territory. They looked like such unassuming creatures - and so fragile, considering the unknown future of the species. I suppose that's why I picked a bilby to lead the children into the Land of Dalriada, and the very reason why creatures such as those, whose habitats are threatened by man and feral animal, would find themselves in such a mythical, yet protective land, in the first place.
It's these beautiful Australian creatures, along with characters based upon my own children, that form the start of my novel...
posted by Andrew Borg at 7:23 PM
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