What Inspires Your #Romance by Mackenzie Crowne

If you were to poll one hundred authors on what questions their readers ask of them, “Where do you get your inspiration?” would most likely be in the top three. And “Everywhere” would be among the most cited responses. 

This is certainly true for me and those flashes of inspiration are one of my favorite parts of the writing experience. I can’t tell you how thrilling it is when a seemingly mundane sight or sound draws my attention and BAM! Bright and shiny possibilities swirl in my mind as the spark of a new plot line flares to life.

For example, news reports of the Bernie Madoff scandal are at the heart of ThatDating Thing, my light-hearted romance involving an assistant district attorney with political ambitions and the daughter of Wall Street’s most notorious stock swindler. 

Of course, not all my inspirations have been huge, game changer experiences. Most are of a far subtler variety. I’m telling you, I was definitely inspired by that super-hottie in line at the post office who, amazingly enough, looked exactly like Beau Walker, the sexy hero of my RONE award-winning romance, A Song for Sophie. In my small-town romance, The Billionaire’s Con, I wrote a heroine chef—right about the time my youngest brother was graduating from culinary school.

Then there is this guy. Murphy, my sister’s crazy but sweet dog was the inspiration for Gracie Gable’s trouble making canine sidekick in book 1 of my Players series, To Win Her Love. He is also the inspiration for today’s post. You see, this past week, those of us who loved Murphy said goodbye to him as he crossed the rainbow bridge. 

I naturally thought of Murphy when Gracie insisted she needed a dog. He was such a sweet boy, after all, with the added bonus of his crazy habit of… 

Well, I’ll let you experience his habit for yourself in the short excerpt below.

Enjoy, and thanks for the laughs, Murph. You were well-loved and will be well-missed.

Murphy landed sure-footed, only to skid across the hardwood floor. Momentum carried him strait for Jake’s long legs.
No stranger to dexterity, Jake danced to the side. He snagged the dog’s collar and halted his progress. Murphy wriggled wildly, the claws of his scrambling paws clicking on the hardwood floor. He bucked, and Jake pivoted his upper body sideways.
The move would’ve worked, too, if Murphy was a normal dog, intent upon jumping up to plant his paws to Jake’s chest. Gracie knew from experience that wasn’t the case.
“Murphy, no!”
Quick as a flash, he dropped his nose and whipped up his head. She cringed as his skull made solid contact with Jake’s unprotected crotch.
A loud oof accompanied the unexpected head butt. Jake’s briefcase clattered to the floor. Stunned pain etched his features.
“What the fu—” He bent forward and the duffle slid from his shoulder to join the briefcase at his feet. He cupped one hand over his injured crotch and shoved the dog away with the other. Jaw clenched and long legs bent, he crossed one knee in front of the other. His eyes slid shut on a pained moan.

To find out how things worked out between Jake and Murphy,

pick up your copy of To Win Her Love at

Kensington Publishing, Amazon, 

and wherever books are sold.

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

NaNo, Windshields and Me by Betsy Ashton

Confession. I'm participating in NaNoWriMo again. Second time. I'm loving it, because I like the structure and discipline it takes to write 50,000 words in 30 days. After last year, I vowed I would never do this again. I am, because I have a story outside my standard genre that I wanted to try.

I usually write women's fiction with mystery elements. I've just finished my first suspense novel. And now I need a bit of a break. I had to get out of the head of a serial killer. Why not write a romance? I mean, how hard can it be?

So, there I was, happily writing away. Ahead of schedule, the words in my kinda hot romance flowed and flowed. The male lead talked and talked and almost didn't notice the female lead. I tried to get him to shut up, but he acted like he'd been vaccinated with an old phonograph needle. Until a moment where he actually noticed the female lead. They can't get together because both wear wedding rings, and no publisher or agent wants a romance where infidelity was key to the sex.

How to get around this? I puzzled and puzzled before I took an overnight road trip. Even with a book in the CD player, my mind focused on the road and the problem in my manuscript. How do I get these to apparently married people to fall in love and in bed without offending the moral readers out there?  Hours rolled by. Miles fell behind. No solution in sight.

Then, a bug splattered on my windshield. Big, juicy forehead-slapping splat. And I had it. Both the male and female leads wear wedding rings, but are they married? Ah, a plot twist replete with misunderstandings, names that confuse and guilt for the growing passion between the leads. Hmm, it just might work. What if misunderstandings when they meet have to be resolved before they can do the big nasty? What if one knows the truth and leads the other into the big nasty without the other knowing the truth? Um, that might be too convoluted, but I haven't ruled it out. I mean, what if one lead isn't married but the other thinks s/he is? Yeah, I kinda like that.

Well, turns out writing romance is harder than I thought, but I'm having a (bodice) ripping good time. These leads have to get to bed. They just have to. They deserve a HEA ending. I hope I'm up to writing the ending so that it doesn't offend, excites the reader and stays true to the romance genre.

I want to thank that bug. The splat cleared the mess out of my head and let me see the plot lines clearly. I love windshield time. What I don't like is having to clean the splattered bug off the glass. It's become epoxy-hard. Maybe I'll wait until the first snow and scrape it off.

That's all, folks. A silly story about how I found inspiration in a dead bug.

My Very Special Muse Is Gone

 by Glenys O'Connell

We've been talking a lot about the women who've inspired us, motivated us, given us an example to follow or stood up for our rights to fulfill our dreams.

This might sound a bit hokey but I believe that sometimes we can draw our greatest strengths and inspirations from sources that aren't, shall we say, human. I know many people who quietly proclaim that their pet – whether that creature is a dog, a duck, a pot-bellied pig, a horse, goat or cat (I've heard them all) - have brought comfort, friendship, and motivation at times when loneliness, grief, health problems or some other bump in life's road has brought them to the point of giving up their hopes and dreams.

One such was my very special Muse, Miss Martha the Cat. You can see from her pic that she's special – one look in those deep eyes when I saw her Ontario Humane Society Shelter photograph had me hooked. A visit to the shelter in Kingston and I knew that Martha and I were meant to be together. We were soul mates.

When I first met Miss Martha (her Shelter name was Skittles – nowhere near dignified enough!) I was grieving deeply at the loss of my beloved LucyFur, a cat I’d adopted while in Ireland and brought back with me when I returned to Canada. I thought my heart would never recover from his loss, but Miss Martha seemed to sense the way I felt – she would curl up on my lap, purring loudly, and look into my eyes as if to say" "It will be all right – you'll see!"

It was a look I was to see many times from her in the five years or so I was privileged to know her. As every writer – indeed, every living human being – knows, life can deal some awful curve balls. Contracts you are sure of suddenly fail to materialize; jobs you'd set your heart on don't come; people let you down. But Miss Martha knew that there is one truth in life – you lie in a sunbeam for a while thinking, then you pick yourself up, dust yourself down and go on.

An independent minded lady, Miss Martha seemed able to look into your very soul. She'd known some hardship in her day. Her first owner had obviously loved her, despite having her declawed. But one day she had packed up her possessions in boxes and moved away, leaving Miss. Martha with a friend. Poor Martha had eventually settled in and, five years later, her new owner pulled out boxes and began packing. Martha found herself in a cage at the Humane Society. In her feline mind, two humans had betrayed her trust, and when we adopted her at the age of ten, she seemed to hold herself back as if afraid to trust us totally.

Then disaster happened.

Off wandering her domain, Miss Martha got lost. Maybe she was chasing a butterfly, maybe hiding from that nasty old tom cat who lived three houses away, I don’t know. But Miss Martha got lost. But we advertised, drove many, many miles to areas where people phoned to say they thought she'd been sighted, and shed many tears at each disappointment.

Then a notice appeared in our village post office: Male Cat Found. Grey & White. Desperate, I took a chance and called the number. The teen who answered said the cat was a neutered male (Oh, how Miss Martha would have railed at that indignity!) but when I asked if she was wearing a neon pink collar, it became obvious this lady was no tom cat! We drove over to the next township to claim her, paid a humingous vet's bill, and brought her home.
She was found five weeks after disappearing by some kind souls spending a summer weekend at a cottage on a nearby lake. She was in awful shape – skin and bones, her paw caught in her collar and her neck and shoulder seriously cut and painfully infected. We'll never know what she lived on in those weeks.

And from the moment she came home, Miss Martha found her trust again. She loved us – after all, hadn't we come and found her when she was lost? She would sit on my desk watching as I wrote, adding her own comments by walking across the keyboard, and she'd sense when the story wasn't going well and come and sit on my lap to make sure I didn't give up and walk away. Or she'd curl up on my office chair with her friend, O.J. (Orange Juice)- see below.. Her presence was an inspiration.

Sadly, when Miss Martha was almost 16 years old, she developed problems with her innards. Discreetly, she was seriously constipated. She lost weight, although she still caught mice which she presented on the door step as if a gift. But the day came we knew she had to go to the vet.

That's when we learned about Feline Megacolon. Apparently cats – usually older ones but not necessarily so – can suffer from a weakening of the bowel muscles. That's why it's important to ensure they get a diet that has some fibre, although not too much as that can actually cause constipation.

Miss Martha was kept at the vet's overnight for an enema. For some reason, and we still don’t know exactly why, the procedure led to her bowel being perforated.

Miss Martha died in my arms, peacefully, in the small hours of the next morning.

We buried her by the cedar tree close to her favorite napping spot in the long grass.. She left behind a family who still grieve, and a writer who wonders if she'll ever find a Muse like Miss Martha.

If you have a cat, do look out for bowel problems. There's lots of info on the Internet, but I also found a group of terrific people online who share information and support about Feline Megacolon – you'll find them here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Feline_Megacolon/  I found them too late for Miss Martha, but I'm writing this in hopes of helping someone else with a furfriend in need of help.

Cat lover Glenys O'Connell writes romantic suspense and cosy mysteries, and her work can be viewed on http://www.glenysoconnell.com/ She also writes non-fiction books such as Depression: The Essential Guide and PTSD: The Essential Guide, and when not writing enjoys poking about in other people's minds as a counselor.

Listen to the Voices Within

Brenda Whiteside

When I was in the fifth grade, I took on a brave and fearless attitude. I could do anything and be anything I wanted to be. My femaleness would not prevent me from at least trying whatever I wanted. And when I was a child, females were often barred from a great number of things. This attitude drove me to enrolling in auto shop when I got to high school. I wasn’t allowed to take the class, but I sure tried. I stepped over the boundary whenever I could, if it suited me. I think the attitude has served me well, and I owe it to a woman whose achievements were monumental. In all of recorded history there has only been one woman who has held supreme command of a nation’s military forces – and she did it at the age of seventeen. My childhood idol was Joan of Arc, or Jeanne d’Arc.

She was born in 1412, the third of five children to a farmer and his wife in France. Her childhood was spent minding the herds in the fields, learning religion and housekeeping skills. When she was twelve, she began hearing voices. In the beginning they directed her to be a good child, study and work hard. But eventually these voices led her on a journey at the age of sixteen to convince the dauphin of France she was the one to free France from the English and make sure he took the throne.

Oh how romantic! My ten-year-old imagination was so taken with the story. Joan of Arc’s life is well documented in spite of the centuries that have passed since she led her troops against the English. She charged into battle carrying the banner but never killed anyone. The quotes from her and the transcripts of her trial after capture, show a spunky young woman with wisdom and courage beyond her age.

She always considered herself a common person following her destiny. When ladies brought her objects to touch, Joan laughed and said “touch them yourselves. They will be quite as good with your touch as mine.”

Unfortunately, her capture led to her death. She was handed over to a pro-English bishop who tried her for witchcraft and heresy. Joan wore men’s clothing, specially made for her small stature because it was appropriate clothing for the battlefield. Much was made of that and the fact she continued to insist she took her orders from God through the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. No matter what they did to her, she stood her ground.

She attempted to escape several times. They put her in chains because of that. Her response was, “it is true that I wished and still wish to escape, as is lawful for any captive or prisoner.”

Even after being jailed, she continued wearing men’s clothing for protection from rape. Men’s clothing was multi-layered. They would not put her in a women’s prison. Unfortunately, that sealed her fate. When a woman wore men’s clothing, the church considered it a crime against God. After fourteen months of interrogation, she was burned at the stake at the age of nineteen.

“She was perhaps the only entirely unselfish person whose name has a place in profane history.” – Mark Twain