Books, Music, and Romance

By Kristine Charles

Today is 17 February and it’s Ed Sheeran’s birthday.

Now, I can’t confirm or deny whether Ed is actually into romance or not but it seems a reasonable bet given:

• the man has written a heap of stellar love songs; and
• he recently married the woman he met at high school when they were both 11; and
• his song Perfect was inspired by his now wife <swoon>. 

Photo from Milkos via depositphotos.com (Image: 321559668)

So, I thought, what better day to explore the connection between music and romance than Ed Sheeran’s birthday.

Many of the authors I know, and read, in #Romancelandia listen to music while they write.

Some have to listen to instrumentals because lyrics are distracting, especially if you like to sing along (like me!). If you’re as addicted to Life Hacks as me, you’ll know that listening to Hans Zimmer music while studying is recommended because it has no lyrics, and the music is intended to motivate.

Others listen to the same song, over and over, to stay in the mood, or the headspace of their characters. I’m pretty sure I heard Lauren, of Christina Lauren, once say that she listened to Xxplosive by Dr Dre to get in the mood for writing Finn of Dirty Rowdy Thing. I <heart> Finn, and that song is hot.

Photo from fxquadro via depositphotos.com (Image: 250373478)

Others create entire playlists to feed their output. For example, Penny Reid and J. F. Lowe both have heaps of playlists on Spotify which, they say, are the songs that inspire the writing of the book.

And then others, again, can’t listen to anything and need silence to feed their creative muse.

Then there are authors who use music to inspire their stories. For example, Renee Conoulty’s Got that Swing series all have song-based titles and the song is central to the story. M. L. Tompsett, Renee Dahlia and Joanne Tracey also use songs to inspire their stories – Shakespeare’s Sister, Lorde and (of course!) Ed Sheeran, respectively.

And then there’s how one particular song can make or break a moment. If anyone went and listened Thomas Tallis after reading Fifty Shades of Grey, you’ll know what I mean… Spem in Alium is haunting and hot in equal measure.

Photo from Vadymvdrobot via depositphotos.com (Image: 336781326)

So, what’s your favourite 'books, music and romance' moment…? 

Love to love: music. It never fails to make me feel better.

Love to laugh: Did you hear about the bed bugs who fell in love? They’re getting married in the spring!

Love to learn: About writing sex and love! Spent three hours with Leisa Rayven this morning and it was fabulous! Leisa is a Queensland based author, has written the Starcrossed Series (Bad Romeo, Broken Juliet and Wicked Heart), and is currently working on the Masters of Love Series. Check her out at leisarayven.com

And you can check me out at www.wordsbykristinecharles.com :-)

Inspiration: 15 Ways to Get It Happening

by Marilyn Forsyth

Image courtesy of giphy

Where does my inspiration comes from? Everywhere and Anywhere. If your muse has gone missing, you might like to try some of my favourite 'creative juice' feeders.


1. Read books. To be a writer, you have to be a reader. If you read only romances, try something different for a change. I bought a book of Celtic tales recently which has prompted an idea for a new story.

Image courtesy of pinterest.com

2. Read magazines for real life inspiration. Mags like Women’s Weekly have fabulous stories about people from all walks of life. Even headlines on covers are fodder for fresh ideas.








3. Watch movies. Sometimes a piece of dialogue will grab me, or an unusual setting will get me thinking. Movie trailers are good for that, too.


4. Listen to Music. Not just while you’re writing, but any time. I find many song lyrics and themes emotionally evocative.

Image courtesy of giphy

5. Have a life outside of writing. Get out of your cave and into the real world to observe what’s happening out there. People watching is endlessly fascinating and snatches of overheard conversation can stir up ideas. Places like airports have an inbuilt emotional ‘feel’ to them which can prove a jumping-off point for the creative process.



6. Travel. Discover new places, meet new people. Learning about different cultures can open up a whole new way of looking at things.


7. Dream. Sometimes the best ideas come in the middle of the night. Or you can daydream or meditate. Give yourself time to do nothing except to let your mind wander.


8. Go for a walk or a run. Fresh air is not only good for the body, it also stimulates your brain.


9. Human-interest pages on Facebook, Humans of New York for example, are well worth following for unique characters.

Image: author's own photo

10. Keep a notebook to jot down thoughts about an interesting character you’ve met, or to capture that utterly brilliant piece of dialogue that you just came up with. My inspiration for Falling in Love Again came from a note I made about opalized fossils after a visit to Lightning Ridge.






11. Write longhand. It doesn’t matter what you write. Don’t think about it, just do it without pausing for 10 minutes or so. Even thoughts that at first seem crazy can hold a gem of an idea.


12. Brainstorm. Free those ideas bubbling away in your brain. Even if those ideas are only half-formed, at least it’s a start.


13. Awaken your curiosity by playing ‘What if…?’ Or take 2 disparate ideas and make them fit together; cross-pollination can lead to original and intriguing outcomes. Cinderella + Hooker with a Heart did pretty well at the movies. 😉

Watercolour by Marilyn Forsyth

14. Be creative in a way other than writing. I like to paint and draw; using my hands instead of my brain allows my mind to roam.












15. Internet sites that feed your passion are a must. I follow a heap of Medieval-interest sites that constantly provide me with food for thought on characters and settings. Write with passion and you’ll always have fun with it.


There you have it: 15 ways to get inspiration happening. If your muse is giving you grief, I hope one of them works for you.


I never wait for inspiration to strike - I get out there and look for it. How about you? Do you wait for it to hit you over the head or do you go in search? 

Love to Love Kate Forsyth and Sarah Mills' Word of Mouth TV interviews with Aussie authors. Catch up on past episodes here.

Love to Laugh at the Graham Norton Show. Love seeing celebs being themselves.

Love to Learn how to improve my craft with feedback from RWAus competitions. For those interested, the Emerald and Emerald Pro close November 26th.

Inspiration or Exploitation?

with guest blogger Nikki Logan

Nikki Logan

Remember the Canadian guy who recently advertised for someone with the same name as the woman who’d just left him at the altar to use his fiancée’s airline ticket and go with him on their non-refundable honeymoon? Or the insanely romantic photo of the man and woman kissing on the asphalt with London riot police in the background? Either one fabulous fodder for a fictional romance, right?

Mmm… Maybe not.

Image courtesy of Getty Images: Rich Lam 

It’s an interesting line you tread when using people’s real lives as inspiration. Quite apart from the moral issue of exploiting someone’s life for commercial gain, you just don’t know whether those people will go on to legally protect their stories. Like the honeymoon guy—someone snapped up the rights to that story immediately for a future movie, so anyone using the premise is going to find themselves in a bit of copyright trouble.

I get it. We’re writers. Observing people and making up wildly creative worlds around them is what we do as readily as breathing. It feels creative and exciting to take a non-fiction moment and let it fuel a fabulous fictional story. Of my twenty books, I don’t even need a whole hand to count those that don’t have real-world elements in them somewhere. I use those vignettes to empower a story but I’ve always tried to stay away from using someone else’s life too centrally. That’s their personal copyright after all. It just didn’t feel…right.

Until it did.

The premise of my new release, Her Knight in the Outback, was inspired by an awareness-raising campaign my sister started for an old flame of hers who had been an official missing person for two years. She started to share a lot of pictures of other Missing (because the network is super supportive of each other) and I realised how enormous this problem was.

Image courtesy of Dee Scully

I dug further, I read professional reports and ordinary people’s experiences, I started to see the similarities in their otherwise dissimilar stories. So, the characters in Her Knight in the Outback are a kind of amalgam of the diverse personality types I saw in my research. The ones who give up their whole lives to the hunt for their particular Missing; the ones who moved straight to acceptance as a coping strategy; the ones who were entirely ready to forgive all if only their loved one would return alive; and the ones who lay crippled under their resentment and anger that someone they loved would intentionally cause them such pain.

You’d think amid all that suffering would be the last place an enduring romance could flourish, right? I thought different. It was easy to imagine a strong, independent woman so emotionally spent from her hunt for her brother that she needs rescuing…just this once. Her own personal Galahad.

A leather-clad Galahad, in this case.

Sometimes, I’ve decided, real life inspires us for a reason. And I hope that, as well as being an optimistic love story, this book helps bring a little awareness to the global tragedy that is the Missing.

How about you?  Do you think it's exploitative to use real life situations in stories?

Her Knight in the Outback

I love to love:  because if you don’t nurture it why would it stay?

I love to laugh:  at my 6-y.o. nephew’s hilarious and brutally astute life observations

I love to learn:  by buying obscene numbers of courses on just about everything from GreatCourses.com.


Her Knight in the Outback

Falling for him was never part of her plan, yet having him there to catch her was a lifesaver.

For an excerpt of Her Knight in the Outback visit Nikki's website.  

Inspiration

by Karen M. Davis

Who inspires you?

Do you have a certain author, or numerous authors, who you admire above all the rest? Do you find them inspirational because you love, love, love their books, their writing style, or the particular stories they write? Do they inspire you because they are just so good? Or does it have more to do with their back-story? How they got to be where they are?

Success seems largely a matter of hanging on, when others have let go. William Feather

I’m inspired by hard work, determination and persistence; all qualities needed to, firstly, finish a manuscript, and then to continue writing manuscripts even when almost buried under rejection letters.

There are many Australian authors I love and find inspirational. To name a few:

Anna Romer,who doesn’t know the meaning of giving up, took fifteen years to land her first publishing deal for Thornwood House and Lyrebird Hill.

Katherine Howell (crime fiction author) wrote for years and did many creative writing courses before she became published, and then eight books followed. 

Even Kate Morton, Australia’s No 1. Best Selling author, took seven years to write her first published book, The Secret Keeper.


Clearly success does not always come easily and almost never overnight. 

Lynne Wilding

But perseverance pays off in the long run.


There are many examples of inspirational authors, and people for that matter. The one person who has had the most influence, and is still a true inspiration to me, is my mother, the late Lynne Wilding.


Of course mothers always impact our lives but what I’m referring to is her resolve and unwavering passion in regards to writing. I remember her sitting at the dining room table with her old typewriter, papers spread everywhere as she tapped away on the keys to all hours. I also remember the look on her face whenever she received a rejection letter. Forcing a smile she’d say, “I must be getting better. They wrote three lines this time instead of one.”

I used to wonder where she found the patience... That was until I started writing and discovered a buried passion of my own. Suddenly it all made sense. It took over ten years for my mother to become published and then twelve best-selling novels followed. She still worried after each book that it would be her last, that she wouldn’t be able to do it again. But even through self-doubt she never stopped writing. She was my inspiration when I was writing my first book, Sinister Intent, and wondering if all the effort was worthwhile.


She is still my inspiration, especially on days when the words are not flowing, or things are not going according to plan. I think we all need a little inspiration at times.

Have you got a story of inspiration? If so please share it with us.

I love to laugh... at anything really; any laugh is a good laugh.

I love to love... my family.
I love to learn... new things about people I know.

Inspiration and the Muse Fairy

One of the most common questions authors are asked in interviews is, ‘where do you get your inspiration?’ Or, ‘Where do your ideas come from?’

These are great questions actually and the answer is always different. Inspiration comes from everywhere and anywhere in many varied guises. Let’s have a look at a few.

Dreams

Creative people dream a lot. And it’s not just when they are asleep. Much gazing out of windows is done and believe me it is time usually well spent. Dreams are a rich source of inspiration, unconscious as it may be at the time. The curse, of course, is that sometimes we can’t recall the dream upon waking, but if it is strong and vivid enough the important part of the dream will stay with you, haunt you even, until you write it down.


Stephanie Meyers, author of the Twilight books, has often explained that the inspiration for Twilight came from a dream of a beautiful boy who later became Edward Cullen, the main character in her book.

The News

The News can be a very rich source of information. Articles on people, places, and situations all over the world can be the spark that sets off a new story idea. Stephen King has said reading the newspaper or watching the News on TV has often given him a story idea. What an author does with the information they get from these news articles is the magic part - the ‘what if’ that comes into play.

In quiet places

You will be surprised how many ideas form in the shower, in the car by yourself and in other quiet places. I think it is because you can let go of your other thoughts and set your imagination free. There is a reason why many writers are also walkers. 

 Poems, song lyrics, and quotes

I confess that I have often used lines from poems, song lyrics and quotes as inspiration. When you read a line and your mind starts sparking it is a wonderful thing. When pictures form in your head of a place, a character or a situation that then turns into your story you know you have been blessed by the muse fairy.

Where in your life do you find inspiration?




Love to love - this quote was the inspiration for my current work in progress currently titled 'The Collector of Hearts', where my hero vows never to be a fool in love again.

Love to learn –about how other writers work and get their inspiration. I've just read


A Year of Writing Dangerously, 365 days of Inspiration and Encouragement by Barbara Abercrombie and found it full of gems to keep you going.




Love to laugh – at romantic comedies. One of my favourites is Bridget Jones's Diary.

~ Cassandra Samuels debut book, A Scandalous Wager, will be available for purchase on the 8th of November, 2014 from Escape Publishing and all good e-book retailers.