#Music #Monday, #LinkinPark and serendipity

Every Monday I like to post a piece of music that's either inspired a story, that I could see as part of the soundtrack to one, or what I'm listening to at the time. Today is a little bit different. Tonight I'm off to see Linkin Park live for the first time. Woo hoo! Not only is that something that's been on my wishlist for a while, but on Friday I released a book very much inspired by a Linkin Park album - Living Things - a coincidence I hadn't even tried to engineer. Clearly it must be fate. :P

So today I give you not just one song, but the playlist that acted as inspiration and soundtrack to my superhero romance When Dark Falls. And hopefully I may hear a couple of those tracks live tonight. Enjoy!

And when you've finished that, maybe the music might tempt you to check out the book. I wonder if you'll be able to spot any themes from the songs in the story? :)

EXCERPT | GOODREADS
Available at... Breathless Press
All Romance eBooks | Bookstrand
Amazon US | Amazon UK

#Music #Monday #1 Darkfall #inspiration

Every once in a while I tweet a music track or two that I'm either listening to as I write, and/or that has inspired whatever I'm working on. This week I thought I'd do something a bit different and talk about why and how a particular track sparked ideas. The track is Burn It Down by Linkin Park, from the album Living Things.

Living Things essentially became the unofficial soundtrack for Darkfall, my decopunk superhero romance novella that has just been out to beta readers. Darkfall started off as, of all things, a scene in my head that came across far more as Urban Fantasy than scifi. I haven't read a lot of UF, and the idea of writing one just seemed too far outside my comfort zone. But I stuck with it over CampNaNoWriMo August 2012, until another idea helped me morph it into scifi. Then I started listening to Living Things, and the whole focus shifted. The almost industrial sounds in the music bled into the story. It became dark and gritty, like the UF it started as, but various elements of tech and almost X-Men style superheroes snuck in. Images from Dark City, Sky Captain of Tomorrow, and an element of Underworld coloured it, and especially my fondness for the whole Art Deco period. It might sound an odd mix, but the music gave it that feel. Lastly, Burn it Down and an image of a flaming oil rig gave me a signature piece of tech that helps shape the Art Deco city of Nephopolis I'd created, and gave the story the almost noir feel I wanted. Music, especially that song and that image, transformed Darkfall from a tenuous UF idea into a fully fledged decopunk. Amazing what music and pictures can do.

A Playlist for Keir

A few weeks ago I published a post about how a Finnish rock band - The Rasmus - came to be such a huge inspiration on my writing, particularly with Keir. Although I was listening to their three latest albums at the time of writing, there were some specific songs that I feel relate more to Keir and his story than others. So while the music influenced the theme overall, I thought I'd share a few of the special songs that I would (if I could) choose as film tracks if I imagine Keir made it there. :)

Main theme - Justify. So close, so far - I'm lost in time.



Love song - Silently. Okay, so this is a track by Elliot Minor and NOT The Rasmus. So silently you will make this day so unreal and never-ending, standing on the edge believing, that this will never end.

Simply for these lines - Ghost of Love - I'm fading, I'm barely breathing, can't hold on, I'm dying, I must be bleeding, won't be long...


Secondary tracks -
Open My Eyes


Shot


Run to You


Lost and Lonely This feels like the end of time, like something bad is coming, you've been living in a world of lies...


Unaffected by Hoobastank (although this was added AFTER I'd written the book). So what should I do, but lay next to you as though I'm unaffected...



And although this has become one of the main themes for the sequel - Lost Serenity - this song sparked my confirmed devotion to the band -
Livin' in a World Without You. Something inside me called freedom came alive...


And of course the song that got me hooked into them in the first place - In the Shadows.


One for Quin - Sail Away. Remember when I swore our love was never-ending, that you and I would never die...


With all of these songs either the tone and/or the lyrics have in some way influenced the feel of Keir, or echoed a theme in the story. The concept behind the main album - Black Roses - was based on keywords such as 'martyr' and 'warrior', and the darkness of it suits Keir perfectly. And yet inside it all, there's always an element of hope. :)

Do you have a theme song for your stories? Do you listen to a particular style of music or band for your books, or more specifically for certain scenes? Or do you find it too much of a distraction?

The Rasmus - live

The 21st May 2012 now holds a special place in my heart. It's the day I finally got to see my favourite band live at last. Woo hoooooo! After missing their UK concert in 2009, I never expected them to ever come back. They aren't huge here. So as soon as their tour was announced at the start of this year and with a London stop listed, I hung on the computer waiting to buy tickets and shrieking in frustration as I saw others getting theirs early!

For those of you who don't know it already, I'm a huge, huge fan of The Rasmus. They rock! It's the one thing I will get silly over. Not all screaming throwing-my-underwear-at-the-stage-and-fainting-in-a-puddle type silly (as happened at the concert) but enough that I go a little weak at the knees when I hear them play. And not only do I love their music, but listening to it again was a part of the inspiration for Keir. I owe them big time. For helping to save my sanity and prompting me to once more put my pen to paper - or at least my fingers to the keyboard.

So how was the concert? Amazing. Fantastic. Awesome! In fact, I'll save you some time and trouble here. Just go to Thesaurus.com and type in 'fabulous'. All the words that come up will cover my feelings over watching the guys play live. :)

Sadly, my new super smart phone wasn't so super at taking photos and video, despite the fact I wasn't far from the front. My view was a smidge better than the camera shows.But here's one semi-decent shot of singer

Lauri Ylönen.

And since my recording of Justify (the song that I'd have as Keir's main theme) was so poor, here's a couple of youtube videos instead. You can't see me, but I'm in there. Somewhere. :-P

No Fear



And the song that some consider their trademark - In the Shadows. Lauri's microphone failed just before the end, but we carried on singing without him, and then all finished together. This was the one that really had everyone going! (I'm somewhere in the second 'everybody on the side' shoutout).



And one of the best thing about seeing them live? Lauri announced another tour coming up very shortly - with another stop in London. I'll be watching, I'll be waiting...

Oh, and this is me. I don't often like pictures of myself or post them - I'm not that much of an exhibitionist. But it was a nice one - for a change.

It's been a euphoric month for me. Seeing The Rasmus live. Having my first full length novel published. My short story reaching its first birthday. And celebrating 19 years of marriage. Can June match that? Only time will tell... :)

Inspiration - The London Aquarium.

Sea anemones. Just love the colours on these!

My youngest turned four on Saturday, so the whole family took a trip to the London Aquarium as his treat (although I can't deny we were all excited about it). Frankly I dislike London - it's too loud, too crowded and too expensive. But the children enjoyed the train journey up (apart from a long wait for the right Circle line train) and we arrived just before the aquarium opened to hear Big Ben strike ten o'clock (which impressed them). We've been to a couple of Sealife centres before and I didn't expect a huge amount different at the aquarium, but somehow we spent just over two hours inside.

The Houses of Parliment.

The London Eye

Most of my friends know I'm a fan of the weird and the wonderful, and this was too good an opportunity to miss for finding some odd inspiration among the tanks of rays, crabs and guppies (of all things! I can see those in my local pet shop any time). The first surprise when we went in was a glass floor looking down into a huge tank below. Sadly there isn't space to stop and enjoy the view as it's a narrow corridor and the only way in, which was a bit of a disappointment.

Brittlestars

I wish I'd recorded some video of these - their waving arms seemed rather sinister. However I DID record the pretty anemones doing their dance, and some baby fish wriggling inside their egg sacs - did I mention I'm a bit weird? :)

 

The biggest hit for my children was the shark tank and the big, open pool full of rays, flat fish and a mixture of other fish.

Ray tank.

Easter Island shark tank

We got to touch a starfish - for those interested, it feels rather soft and squidgy but the skin itself is kind of scaly/spiny. The underside with all the feet - well, I couldn't feel anything of the feet but the edges of the arms feel quite rough. Youngest got to hold a crab - which was very well behaved and didn't nip - but after weekends spent crabbing at Mersea he wasn't that impressed!

replica(?)whale bones

I do not have a thing for skeletons. Seriously! Although I'm finding it hard to deny considering the number I'm posting in various places. However, having a scifi story out called The Bones of the Sea, it seemed only fitting that I post this, from the largest tank at the aquarium.

Turtle

Cleaner shrimps

Bat stars. Seriously creepy-looking!

I could post pictures from the trip all day long, but that might turn this into a rather long post. So I'll leave you with one final video from the aquarium of Upside Down Jellyfish - yes, they really are called that and it isn't just a description. Enjoy!

Thanks to The Rasmus

In 2004 I was heavily pregnant, suffering horrible morning sickness, and bored out of my mind. I started watching the music channels on the digital freeview since I was finding daytime tv beyond tedious. A song caught and held me, something a bit different and from a band I'd never heard of, in a style of music I'd never listened to before. The lead singer looked a bit odd, and the video seemed very surreal, but it caught and held me.

The song was In the Shadows, and the band was The Rasmus. I don't know why the song got under my skin so much, but it did. I listened to it repeatedly. I bought the album it came from - Dead Letters. Around the same time I woke up one morning with a character in my head and a name - Keir. I wrote twenty pages of story, not having written much in the five years before, despite having been an avid writer all through my teens. Then baby number two arrived, I became chronically depressed, and both music and story sank into the background.

Shift forward another five years. My three children playing happily in the garden over summer. Me, hugely overweight a year after the birth of my third child. Bored, miserable, tired. Feeling as though my identity was slipping away, aside from being a wife, a mother. Losing the person I'd been under labels that, although I was proud of them and took joy in being those things, had me wondering who and what I was any more. I needed something else. I needed my passion back.

I dug out the short story about Keir. I'd left him sitting in a dungeon, alone, dying, with no hope. Could I save him from that? And so save my own sanity? I started to write again. Once I'd started, I couldn't stop. I scribbled and typed endlessly, frenziedly. The words poured out of me. My husband thought I'd gone crazy. Maybe I did a little, but it felt so much better.

And as I wrote, I listened to music. I listened and I sang. In the years since I'd first heard In the Shadows, The Rasmus had two new albums out - Hide from the Sun and Black Roses. I LOVED them! So much of the feel in Keir is down to that music. It inspired me and kept me going. I'd found my passion again.

So Keir has come out of the shadows and into the world, and took me with him. Music carried us there, and for that I will always be grateful. I'm writing again, and I'm published. I've been to see a few bands over the last year and loved it, but now the chance has come to see The Rasmus live at last, and that is the biggest to-do on my list. I have my tickets! The past year has been an utter blast, and sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe that it's real. I'm finally the person I want to be - mother, wife, friend and author - and I couldn't be happier. :)

(Oh, and on the wildly unlikely assumption that this should ever get back to Lauri Ylönen - I apologise for saying you looked 'odd'. I should say 'distinctive'. Blame it on pregnancy hormones. :)  )

Weird Wednesday #2

Dragon's Skull

Don't believe that's what it is? Then what do you think it is? My husband found this on the beach at Frinton-on-Sea and we were stumped. It looks, for all the world, like a dragon. I thought perhaps an eel or maybe a fish like a gunard. I posted it to my Facebook profile (so some of my friends now know the answer to this mystery) but snakes, rays, even dogs were suggested.

The wonderful about the internet is that the answer was relative easy to find. But shocking nonetheless. This, in fact, is the pelvis of a sea bird. Yes, really! You can go here and see for yourself - this is obviously from a different species to ours (and we haven't been able to pinpoint exactly which ours came from) but the draconian appearance of it is amazing!

It's also incredibly light and fragile. How it survived at all, I don't know. I'm not really into bones and skeletons, but I can appreciate the beauty and delicacy in this, and the speculation over it's true identity.

So there you go. Dragon skulls on the beaches of the UK, there for the finding, to entertain your kids and friends. Weird enough for ya? :-P

It seems fitting with presenting this piece of weirdness to comment on the sad passing of the Dragonlady herself, Anne McCaffrey. As so many authors have said on the internet since the news was announced, a great loss and an inspiration to so many, myself included. Much sorrow.

Weird Wednesday #1

A few days ago, my good friend posted this to my Facebook profile, with the note 'this made me think of you. It is the you-est you that ever youed. And you will undoubtedly think it's devastatingly beautiful.'

That told me two things. One, that my friend knows me extremely well. Two, that I am indeed a fan of the weird and wonderful - not a bad thing for a writer. The weird and the wonderful are great inspiration, although the mundane works just as well for me as often.
I have no idea what this is - a type of praying mantis at a guess. But it reminded me of a post on Google+ (yes, I'm there as well) also posted by an author as a piece of inspiration.






So, over the next couple of weeks I'm going to post some of the weird and wonderful things that I've come across, and maybe you'll find some inspiration in them too. Or maybe, you'll just realize what a total weirdo I am and never come back. :-P

There's no such word as "can't" ...

That's the key thing I've learned while writing. The past year has proved that to me. I've hit milestones I never imagined I would ever see. Not just in my writing, but in my personal development too. But enough about me ... :-P

Of course the word "can't" exists. The phrase "there's no such word as ..." refers more to a state of mind. Of how we can convince ourselves, or allow those around us, to believe that the desires and dreams we have are unattainable. Foolish. Unrealistic and doomed to failure should we try. I've seen far too many people dragged down and held back by that fear. I've let it hold me down too.

Perhaps we do need to be realistic about things, to hold the thought that failure IS a possibility, but we shouldn't allow it to stop us trying. To try is to fail, but trying is equally the only way to success.

“To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”

I have to remind myself of that every time I attempt something that could fail. Rejection hurts, but if I don't make a submission then there's no chance of acceptance. So prepare yourself for the pain knowing that it could come, but that it could just as easily be joy. Every writer has been there. Every writer has been through it. If, like me, you have a wide community of writing friends then you know you have a shoulder to cry on if that rejection comes. Equally, you'll have a round of applause for the acceptance.

Don't let it hold you back. Don't let it stop you. If all else fails, sheer stubbornness can get you through. :)


“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.” Mary Anne Radmacher

Inspirations - Scifi/Fantasy Films

Staying with inspirations, these are my top five scifi/fantasy films that I wanted to share with you - let me know if you agree or what your alternative listing is! :)

1.Star Wars. Okay, slight cheat here as this refers to all three films of the original trilogy (and not the later-made prequels). If you want me to stick to the 'rules' then I'd put The Empire Strikes Back in the top slot. For me, this film is 'the Trials of Luke Skywalker' in the finest tradition of testing a young hero, and his struggle to deal with his new-found powers and his dedication to the Jedi religion while still being true to the people he loves. These were the films that converted me from my early love of fantasy to the world of science-fiction. Well, that, and a small crush on Luke Skywalker.<blushes>


2.The Fifth Element. Although I think the story is a little weak and Zorg (Gary Oldman) comes across as one of the most ineffectual villains I know, I love this film. Visually entertaining and with some fab music, it has redeeming features, the feisty and yet fragile Leeloo for one. There's also some great humour in this, and Zorg's crowning moment is his reaction when, having deactivated his own bomb, the device set by the Mangalores activates and explodes. The clip here is the Diva's performance - and it's probably not what you'd expect if you haven't seen the film. I love the mix of classical with funky electronica in this piece. Also evidence that I'm not the first person to have blue aliens, and to do so is not simply 'copying' Avatar. :-/


3.Galaxy Quest. A parody of Star Trek and similar scifi shows, this has some fantastic humour in it, but also rather poignant. If you were famous for a particular scifi role and the show got cut and you couldn't find another job, what would you do? Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith, the actor who played Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart, throws himself whole-heartedly into conventions and playing to his fans, only to discover that his 'crew' hate him. Just as he loses faith in himself and everything he's done, a group of aliens who have taken the show as reality - 'historical documents' - seek him out and ask for his help. The show's catch phrase of 'Never give up, never surrender!' is a cry all aspiring authors could adopt. :) The one down-point in this film for me is the death of Quellek. :( Strangely for me, I didn't feel my general nerdiness was being mocked - as scifi geek Brandon in the film says; I'm not a complete nutcase, you know, I understand it's not real. :-P

4.A Knight's Tale. Okay, this appeals more to my mushy side I'm afraid. I love the medieval era and have used touches of it in my writing. I adore Heath Ledger's character in this - a young man striving for his dreams, prepared to take any risk to achieve it, and despite the odd tantrum, he does so with the same nobility of the high-born knights he hopes to emulate. In fact, his behaviour is a darn sight more noble than some of the so-called champions he meets. The use of some classic rock music rather than the more historically-accurate kind makes this stand out for me, and the romantic elements are enough to touch my heart without making me cringe. Sir Ulrich and his lady Jocelyn are well-matched, and his heart-felt belief in himself and determination to succeed are inspiring!


5.The Dark Crystal. I adore this film. For me, it's unique and special. The skill that was needed to make it, the weird and wonderful characters - the whole concept of it. At a time when computerized special effects were laborious and still required the use of models and blue screen, in the early days of animatronics, this film is iconic. To this day, I still collect Brian Froud's fairies, and I even have a couple of the figures - Jen and Kira - that my husband bought me as a birthday present one year. My first full length story was based on this film. Am I gushing too much? :-P


So tell me your top inspiring films, and why they did it for you. :)

I have a thing for Weird Plants ...

... or so it seems. A friend of mine has commented on various plant photos that I've posted and told me that they creep her out. I don't know whether it's a perception on her part or a twist in my psyche. In my defence, I will say that my mother was a professional florist and obsessive gardener, so maybe it's a part of my heritage. Rather than being disturbed by it, said friend's astute comments have led to story inspirations, so I thought I'd share some of the pictures with you. Then maybe you can tell me whether I have a freaky thing for plants!

 Bergamot

Passionflower

Aquilegia

Cone Flower

Clematis

This last one inspired one of my favourite pieces, and an unusually gruesome one for me.

As he stared down at her, Jinx gazed wide-eyed over his shoulder with bemusement written over her face as something velvet-soft draped itself across his shoulders in a gentle caress. Irritated, his focus on his captive, Keir shrugged it off, but soon more feather-light touches stroked over his torso. He sat up abruptly, releasing Jinx's arms and glancing behind him. Long, langorous petals petals like wide ribbons of deep rose satin with delicately feathered edges were drifting over him in slow, graceful sweeps. One wrapped itself lovingly around his injured arm and he flinched at the sudden sting as though acid had been dripped into his wounds, a hissed breath of pain forced from him at the shock of it as he tried to jerk his arm free. The petal merely coiled tighter with unexpected steel in its grip, prickling wherever it touched in sharp contrast to the initial softness of its caresses. More had entwined themselves unnoticed around his legs and waist in silken coils that had an impossible strength, and burned as he tugged against them.

So am I weird? Or did you find some inspiration among the petals too? :-P

Spacefreighters Lounge

I'm guest blogging over at Spacefreighters Lounge today, with huge thanks to the very lovely and talented Laurie A Green for inviting me. It's my first ever guest post, squeeeeeeeeeee! So please pop by and say hi, and take a look around. I'm posting about my inspiration for one of my stories, and there are a plethora of scifi related links and articles to check out too.  :)

Self-publishing - The Mechanics #2

Last time I shared my experience with two POD companies and the options they offered on cover design and formatting. This time I'm going to look at the artwork and software I've used to create covers.

There are numerous companies that sell images and photographs - type it into a search engine and you'll find them. The one I've used is dreamstime.com although I've also been looking at fotolia.com recently. Again, dreamstime was recommended to me by a friend, and has been an invaluable source of images and inspiration for me. They even have a section of free images for use on blogs, and for those of us who don't have the budget for commissioned artwork, they are a reasonable alternative. Virtually every image on this blog is from there, aside from the odd personal photograph or those donated by friends.

But a great image isn't necessarily enough. I originally bought two beautiful images to use as potential book covers for a good price with the right to print 500,000 copies (maybe a bit ambitious in terms of actual books, but I can aim high! And there's always bookmarks, business cards etc.)




Both of these images work well as book covers in their own right. But I wanted the ability to do something more, something more creative or ambitious. As a teenager I would often draw images to accompany my stories, but my artistic abilities haven't grown with me, and I find it frustrating that I can't visually display my stories in the same way that I sketch them in literary terms.



Which meant finding software that could do the job. And it had to be free.



So a friend suggested GIMP. It's free to download, but I found it very hard to use. I made one piece of artwork and created the heading for my blog, but that was as far as I could go.





Then I was given a link for a free software trial for creating book covers. Click the link to see my review of Book Cover Pro, but the upshot was that I struggled with it; I found it a little limited and complicated without achieving the results that I was hoping for. Perhaps if I'd been able to devote more time to it during the trial I might have done better, but you can try it out for yourself here.





With the trial expired and the software expensive to buy, I was back to square one.





Then, on a whim, I posted a request via Twitter. I had two responses. One suggested GIMP, which I'd already tried, and the other suggested Aviary Phoenix.Whereas GIMP is a free download, Aviary is based on the website. On first investigation it looked horribly complicated, more so than GIMP, but it did provide some very helpful step-by-step tutorials. So I gave it a try - and failed abysmally. Again, my technical abilities let me down. Even though I followed the steps and re-read carefully, what came up on my screen was nothing like the example given, and I gave up. A more technically-minded friend offered to go back to GIMP and refresh her memory on its use and then take me through it, so I kept my fingers crossed.

But I'm stubborn. Oh, very much so! Being defeated by a piece of software wasn't something I was happy about, so I went back and tried Aviary again. And discovered that on my original attempt I'd messed up the very first step which meant that any others would fail no matter how closely I obeyed the instructions of the tutorial. D'oh!

So now, I can turn these:













into this:













And then with a little work on blurb.com, into this:

OK, it might not look like the cover of the next blockbuster, but the difference is that 'I' made it myself. :)

The down side is that all of this takes time and experimentation, and a little cash to buy the images. However, for someone on a small budget with a few hours to spend on it, it's a more realistic option than commissioning artwork where, even with a stunning and capable artist, their final effort may still not be the image you had in your head.

Have you tried designing your own covers? What did you use and how happy were you with the results? Or did you commission something? I'd love to know, but I hope some of this helps you. :)

Writing Wednesday #2

I absolutely LOVE words. They fascinate me. It's probably some kind of OCD, but when I was younger I would actually read the dictionary and note down interesting, unusual and potentially useful words. So when this came up, I was instantly hooked.

100 Beautiful and Ugly Words
by Mark Nichol

Go and check it out! :)

Writing Wednesday #1

I thought I'd start posting some of the useful (?) pieces of writing information that I come across in my frequent trawls of the internet. I usually tweet them or post to Facebook, but I've decided it's time my blog did a bit more work too. :)

So, don't know your 'yikes' from your 'pshaw'? Need a verbal expression of fear, astonishment or outrage? Check them out here:

100 Mostly Small But Expressive Interjections

by Mark Nichol

Creativity in Colour

First I have to confess that this post is a little bit of a cheat because this was a task set by our tutor to help start off the creative process in our writing. I wanted to share it though, because it was a lot of fun to do, and I can see it as a useful tool when inspiration doesn't come easily.





The task - choose a colour, either one you love or that you never wear. Choose a piece of music that matches the colour in your mind. Sit in isolation with your eyes closed and the music playing. Picture the colour in your head. Then free write, without correcting, without grammar, whatever comes into your mind, as fast as you can.


I choose green - emerald green to be specific, though I don't think the exact shade was required! And my piece of music was the theme from Harry's Game by Clannad - the reasoning behind that may become apparent later on.



I felt a little silly sitting there and thinking green thoughts, but then I picked up my pen and scribbled furiously for the requisite minimum of five minutes, and a little beyond. This is what I came up with.

Emerald green makes me think of velvet, soft and warm. The medieval tunic I bought with a long pixie hood, laced up the front with black cord and through little brass rings, like something out of a book by Tolkien - elves and magic.

Walking through deep, dark pine woods. Needles all glossy green, the dead brown ones crunching slightly under my feet. Soothing silence and the smell of resin. The smell of damp. Black soil beneath the needles as I dig them up with the toe of my boot.

Thick grass shaking in the wind on the hillside in Ireland. (Here the association to Clannad leapt to mind - Irish!) A long green slope down the the cliff's edge before it falls into the sea. Even the water looks green - beautiful blue-grey-green under a cloudy sky.

A circle of stones on the Isle of Arran.Three huge stark slabs of slate or something, 10, 12 feet tall with long brown streaks down them like rust. Grassy slopes leading up to them and then down the other side, open moorland.

Tiny emeralds in a ring my mum wore, one of them missing, replaced by another paler stone.

Pistachio icecream.

Lime cordial, so hard to find now. Am I the only person in the world who drinks it?

Peppermint cordial. Tastes like toothpaste, ug! But looks so pretty in the bottle, clear emerald green.

The task itself is not that far from the methods I use when I get stuck - music and images - but having it set as a specific exercise with rules seemed to work far better, and is something that I will use again. I also found myself writing the outline to my fourth book shortly afterwards - although there's nothing 'green' about it, clearly my muse had found the task inspiring!

So do you have any special methods for inspiring your muse? Would you share them, or are they your secret? :)

For those interested, I'm currently studying 'A174 - Start Writing Fiction' with the Open University. Please click on the links to find out more.

Are you a writer?

Tell me if you do this, and be honest -

1.)Do you tell anyone that you are a writer? Or is it the last thing on your list of skills or attributes?

2.)Do you confess to being a writer but - (a)immediately point out that you're not published or anything or
(b)feel that you should be apologising for making such a claim?

For over a year now, that's exactly what I've been doing. Yep. Every single one of the above. And really, I'm ashamed of myself. Why has it been so difficult for me to say 'Hi, my name is Pip and I'm a writer'? Because that's what I am. Anyone who writes anything, whether it's published or not, be it random thoughts, a poem, a limerick, a 200,000 word epic or a three line joke, is instantly a WRITER. Oh yes, they are. It isn't some terrible vice or shameful secret. It is a skill, a talent, a bonus.

It can be a torture and a joy. It can be pain and pleasure. It can wile away a sunny, peaceful afternoon or shake you sweating and panicked from the middle of a dream. Writing is living.

There is nothing worse than a blank page and an empty mind, or a piece of prose that falls flat to my ears. There is nothing greater than filling that page, or reading it back and feeling that tremor of excitement, that euphoria of having chosen exactly the right words to convey the image or emotion. It's like the touch of sunlight on cold, bare skin.

I'm not expecting to be the next JK Rowling. Right now, I don't even see myself being published at all - at least, not in the traditional manner. But that's ok. Even knowing that just a handful of people have had some pleasure from reading my work is a satisfaction. Completing three books over the last 15 months was more than I had ever hoped to achieve. Because it has taught me one thing. I now know for sure that I AM....wait for it....A WRITER!

Be proud - say it out loud!

Special thanks have to go to all the inspirational peeps that I have met and friended over these 15 months who have given me the confidence to admit to my addiction. Thanks! You are all amazing.

To find some really inspirational writers and creators, follow me on Twitter (@happarose197) and meet them all.

Divine Inspiration

Where do you find your inspiration? Is it already boiling away inside your head? A bolt from the blue? Or a slow and steady brewing as you absorb things from your surroundings?

This is another topic that has come up in my student cafe. Many sources were quoted. Films, books, TV. Radio, conversation, people met and known. Music. Art. Dreams and nightmares. Nature and artifice. Life itself. All perfect ingredients to add to the recipe.

But what about when the inspiration fails? Then what?








Sometimes I'll sit and continue to write, even if it's all gibberish flowing onto the screen or scrawling across the page. Sometimes I know what needs to be written, but simply don't have the enthusiasm to pursue it. Sometimes I have to do it regardless, to force the words to come.





If all else fails, I have three key things that can tempt the inspiration back. A long walk or drive. Listening to music. Searching through images.


A friend recommended Dreamstime to me when I was hunting for a possible book cover as an option for self-publishing. It's a site that specialises in images - photographic and digitally created. (Again, there are other sites that offer the same service and I'm not endorsing this one in any way - it's simply the one I like to use.) Not only has it provided me with a couple of superb images to use for my book, but several others for my blog and Facebook page.




Usually I'm looking for an image that ties in with something already written. Sometimes I'll just type in a random word and then flick through the images until something grabs my attention. Something I like. Something I can use. A few of my favourite pieces have come from a single image that has inspired a train of thought and led me onwards. And the best thing is, even if I don't find something that fires my muse today, who knows what might be on there tomorrow?



So where do you find your inspiration? Do you actively seek it or wait for it to come? Hopefully you might even have found a smidgeon of inspiration here..... :-)

Using the darkness...

I don't like to complain. I always feel that I have no good reason to, no right to ever do so. It's very easy to look at the world around you and see someone far worse off than yourself, but I always find that increases my own depression. Trying to make myself feel better by comparing my own sorrow to the plight of another suffering human being only emphasizes the sadness and pain of it all. It helps no-one, solves nothing.

So what is the cure? Hot chocolate and marshmallows? Talking to friends and family? A facepalm and a stern injunction to yourself to 'buck up'? Helping someone else out? It can certainly ease the problem or provide a distraction. When I feel myself sinking, I tend to hide away - if I can't stand my own company, why inflict it on the people I love in my life? I know it will pass. I know life has its highs and lows. The swings of a pendulum, the shift from day to night and back again, the rise and fall of the waves....nothing in this universe is constant, everything subject to flux and change.

So will I be happy tomorrow? Probably. Will I get depressed again? Likely. Am I going to keep on complaining about it? Well, maybe just a little! In the meantime, what can I do with it, this darkness pouring through my soul, dragging me down? Perhaps this is a good time to write a dark, depressing scene for the next book....?