Where I Find #Inspiration by Christine DePetrillo

As an author, I’m constantly searching the world around me for ideas. When my students grumble that they have “nothing to write about,” I quickly arc my arms out and say, “Study your surroundings. Ideas are everywhere.” I then usually pick up random things around the classroom and generally act like a semi-crazy person.

“See this pencil?” I’ll ask as I brandish a very ordinary school supply. “What if it remembers everything about being the tree it once was?”

“See this box of crayons here?” I’ll ask as I wiggle the brand new box of twenty-four bold colors. “What if everything you draw with them comes to life?”

“See your best friend sitting at his desk across the room?” I’ll ask as I point to another student. “What if he’s keeping a really BIG secret from you right now?”

Inspiration. It’s everywhere if we ask those what if questions. True writers make a sport out of wondering about the people, places, and objects we come into contact with everyday. We also wonder about those people, places, and objects we’ve never seen in person.

I have a few tricks I use when I need a little help in the inspiration department. Here they are in no particular order.

1    1. Surfing the Web – The internet literally puts the world at our fingertips. I often spend some time (not too much) just hopping around online to see where I end up. A news article on the ancient Aztecs could result in a historical fiction story idea. A classified ad could give a character an interesting job. A review about a new car model could lead to a high speed chase in a book. The internet is ripe with inspiration… if you don’t spend too much time stuck on Pinterest browsing recipes, that is. Actually, even that could lead to story ideas if you remember you were looking for story ideas.

2    2. Eavesdropping – This sounds like an invasion of privacy—and maybe it is—but I listen to people in line at the grocery store, while waiting for food at a restaurant, as I sit in my backyard while the neighbors are outside fighting with each other. I study the way people say things, what they talk about, how they address one another. Bits of conversation give you a window into different personalities, all of which could help develop more realistic characters. Don’t be afraid to eavesdrop. Just don’t get caught because that gets awkward.

3    3. Walking in the Woods – Sometimes I just need to be away from everyone. I need to power down completely and push aside all the stimulation living in the modern world throws at us 24/7. Walking in the woods centers me. It allows me to empty the clutter that builds up in my mind and be more receptive to inspiration. I find that sitting on the leaf-covered ground, sunlight warming me, reboots my system. It’s important to take time to reopen your creative channels however works best for you. When I try to go, go, go, I often don’t go anywhere. Retreating to the woods gets the creative juices flowing again.

4    4. Listening to Music – Songs stimulate visual imagery for me. I listen to a song and imagine the video I’d put with it. Music works best for me when I’m actually already writing a story. I’ve found that the right music makes all the difference in the word flow. Sometimes a simple station change from one genre of music to another opens the flood gates protecting the words. Music also helps me block out any noise happening around me while I’m trying to write.

5    5. Advertisements – You know, the ones that come in the Sunday paper? I sometimes page through those to find outfits for my characters. As a victim of twelve years of Catholic school uniforms, I have absolutely no fashion sense. Dressing myself is a challenge, never mind clothing my characters. When I read, I like to know what people are wearing so I try to incorporate that into my own books, but it isn’t easy for me. I don’t know what is currently in fashion. I pretty much like men in flannel shirts, jeans, and work boots, but I realize men do wear other things. I just have no idea what. The advertisements help me get inspiration so my characters don’t make the same fashion mistakes I do.

These are just some ways I find inspiration when I’m writing. They don’t always work all of the time, but they are in my writer’s toolkit for those emergency situations when the words get stuck.

Do you have any suggestions for me in terms of where to go or what to do when seeking inspiration? I’d love to hear them.

Toodles,

Chris

www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com

May is For Writing Memories, Too...by Glenys O'Connell (Book Giveaway)

I love the Internet.

I have always loved the Internet.

Right from way back in the early 1980’s when it first became available to the very rural area I lived in. In those days you had to plug a telephone cord into your computer, none of this cable or satellite technology. And it was slow, at times painfully so. But then, at that time computers were also very slow, and the slowness did nothing to diminish the wonder, the sheer joy of being able to send an article or a newsletter to people in places as disparate as South Africa, Australia, The US and Jamaica, and have it arrive within hours.

Well, yes, I did say it was slow. But in those days it could take anything up to four weeks for a letter in what we now call 'snail mail' to reach any of those destinations from here in rural Canada.

To be able to send copy for articles, promotional materials, web content - this was in the pre-blog days, if you can imagine that - in so short a time was a miracle in communication terms. These days I can send an entire manuscript to a publisher in minutes, send article proposals to magazines far away, write web content for companies across the Atlantic who then use the miracle of the Net to disperse them to clients in other countries…

There's no doubt that writers have benefited hugely from the arrival of computers and the Internet. Sure, people argue there are drawbacks, such as digital books threatening the very existence of real paper books (as if!) and some bemoan the fact that anyone at all can put out an ebook or a dvd or a cd without having to go through the filters of 'professional' gatekeepers such as publishers and record companies.

Well, phooey!

This will all shake out in time. There are awful ebooks out there, unedited, badly written, plotless and pointless. But the simple fact is that, once bitten, the reader will be twice shy. People putting out poor quality work won’t find a market for their next work.

And, as someone who loves writing, I can't see any real reason to deprive others of the fun of putting out their words into the EtherNet.

My first computer was only black and white, and worked on a rather dowdy, extremely limited word

processing system. Then Windows was invented and - wow!
One company I worked for as a journalist proudly presented me with a Macintosh Computer - the Apple trademark was still in the pipeline. This computer, with its tiny monitor, needed a large floppy disc to be inserted in the top drive, and another in the lower drive. The top disc held all the programming information, and without it, you weren't going anywhere!

The bottom disc contained all the material you diligently typed in, and this disc, closely guarded, was the one a courier took to the company's editorial headquarters two or three times a week.

Yes, I can hear you youngsters out there snickering. But that’s fine. Someday your kids or grandkids will compare you to a dinosaur, too.

The daily newspaper I worked for provided portable electric typewriters to its staff, and quickly scented the benefits of a computer network in the office. For myself, running a fairly remote satellite office, they purchased a portable computer. People these days might laugh, but then it was state-of-the art.

To be honest, with its case closed it looked just like a large, square portable typewriter. Oh, but the joy it brought - I could type in all my articles and features, then - get this - I fitted the telephone receiver into the two rubber rimmed holes on the top, made a few adjustments, whispered "AbraCaDabra" or, on bad days, a prayer to St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless cases,  and all my work flew across the ether to my boss, the Managing Editor. I might finish work at 3:30 am, but it was in his computer 100 km away, when he started work at 6:30am

The only glitch, really, was that digital cameras weren't available then. I'm a photojournalist, took my own pix to go with articles and stories, and these were on the old fashioned rolls of film. Where once a courier stopped by my mailbox in the wee small hours and whisked my paper copies of articles off to head office, now he stopped by only on the days I called and asked him to pick up film.

Now everyone has a digital camera - sometimes several if you include the pocket one, the laptop one, the computer one, and the cell phone one…..

Sometimes as sit on my front porch with my laptop, I imagine I can see words and pictures flying by my head, carried on unseeable waves, from thousands of computers and cameras and phones…..

Yes, I love the Internet.

Do You love the Internet? There's your choice of one of my ebooks for the best reason to love the Net.

Glenys O'Connell's love affair with the Internet continues to grow as she dabbles with Indie publishing. Click here to take a look at her list of traditionally published and Indie published books here.

Blessings Come In Many Forms--even Internet access

--By Vonnie Davis

Remember life without the Internet? Days gone by when we weren't connected online with family, friends and strangers. We did our shopping in stores or through catalogs back then. All of our bills were paid by writing checks and stuffing envelopes. If our families were spread across the country, our phone bills were horrendous. We gave out our street address instead of our email address. And we queried agents and publishers via snail mail. Heck, we didn't even know what snail mail was back in the day!

Now we query online to most publishing professionals. Even so, we still present our best side; we write professional and error free emails. Of course, there are those who send queries just like they do texts. My agent complains of email queries with no capital letters and the number two instead of "to." Evidently these wanna-be-writers have never heard Forrest Gump's mother's famous words: "Stupid is as stupid does."

I have a special benefit from the Internet--my husband Calvin. We met on match dot com and were married a year to the day of his first email. He was a retired English teacher and writing his second novel. I was living in a neighboring state, working at a job I darn near hated and doing rewrites on my first book (or would that be mess-terpiece?).

As a grandma, I keep in touch with my grandchildren online through email, Twitter, Facebook and Skype--all free, which never hurts.

The Internet has also changed how many do their jobs. Lab test results at hospitals are now emailed to doctors. Teachers post grades on the Internet so parents can ground their kids before the report cards are printed out. Realtors use Internet listings to find the perfect house for their clients. Need a recipe? Do an online search.

In my book, Storm's Interlude, Sunny, a cancer patient, needs to get stronger for a second round of chemo. She finds my heroine online. Rachel is a nurse with a Masters in nursing and extensive training in non-traditional methods she incorporates into traditional medicine therapies. She travels to the hillcountry of Texas to the ranch where Sunny lives with her twin brother Storm. Fireworks start the minute Storm and Rachel meet--both times. And you'd have to read the book to understand that...

I'm sharing an excerpt below. For a chance to win an eCopy of my debut book, leave a comment telling me the kind of bread on the counter and your email address, so I can contact you should you win.

Storm heard off-key singing when he opened the back door. He quietly toed off his boots in the mudroom before stepping into the kitchen.

An open laptop sat on the wooden kitchen table. Beside it was a mug of steaming tea. On the counter was a loaf of wheat bread next to a jar of peanut butter. Protruding from the opened refrigerator was a cute behind, covered by baggy yellow pajama bottoms, wiggling to the beat of the song being sung. “Shot through the heart and you’re to blame, you give love a bad name.”

The off-tune singing stopped, but that perfectly rounded bottom continued to wiggle. “Pickles...pickles. Surely there are pickles in this huge refrigerator. Maybe some of those sweet little Gherkins. Oh, look, cottage cheese. You give love a bad name…” The off-tune singer extracted a container from the crowded contents of the refrigerator, absently reaching out to set it on the counter.

Sneaking up behind her in his stocking feet, he placed a hand on the edge of the open door of the refrigerator and leaned over her bent body. 

She moved a pitcher of orange juice. “Okay, pickles, where are you hiding?”

“Check behind the milk.”

Rachel yelped and spun around, her hand to her heart. Her big blue eyes opened impossibly wide. “You! Wha...what are you doing here?”

He held out his hand. “Hello, Rachel. I’m Storm Masterson, Sunny’s twin brother.”

“You…you’re Sunny’s brother? Don’t you dare touch me.” She made a fist and had the audacity to shake it under his nose. He didn’t know whether to laugh or paddle that cute behind she’d been wiggling earlier. “You…you just keep your hands and your lips to yourself. You…you naked, kissing bandit.”

Storm leaned his head back and laughed. “Well, I’m not naked now. Just how do I classify as a bandit? I didn’t steal anything from you.”

Rachel fisted her hands on her hips, leaned in and narrowed her eyes in such an appealing way he was overcome with a keen desire to kiss her softly and slowly, the kind of kiss that made you sigh partway through it. “You stole a kiss from me.” Her eyebrow arched. “Or have you forgotten?”

He smiled, his hands itching to touch her. What man walking the face of this earth could forget a kiss like the one they’d shared earlier? “Is it called stealing when the woman gives as good as she got?”

Rachel shook her fist again. “Back up, buster. I’ll not be kissed like that again.”

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